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SAINT LOUIS: 




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HEADQIMRTEES', 



Future Great City 



OK 



THE WORLD. 



BY L. U. REAVIS. 



Henreforth St. Louis must be viewed in the light of her future — her mightiness in the 
empire of the world — her sway in the rule of states and nations. 



BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 



ST. LOUIS : 

GRAY, BAKER & CO 

-|(I7 X. FdUHTii SriiKiri/. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the vear 1S75, bv 

W. W. WOOD, 

In tlie office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



(HAS. E.WAKE .V- (JO., |{K(JKTOLD .\; CO., 

I'KIXTKHS. ■' BIXHERS. 





aited E^tiGn 






DANIEL RANDALL GARRISON : 

.4 citizen great ill the attributes of manhood ; one zvho has zvove// out froni his 
individual itw his superior brain and restless activity^ a large con- 
tribution to the city of 9?iy theme, and to my country ; one 
zvho, in building up his oxvn fortunes, has im- 
pressed his character upon many material 
interests, and who gives promise 
of still greater usefidness 
in the future ; 

THIS VOL UME, 

Which illustrates a fadeless hope, and a profound conviction in the 
future of St. Louis, is respectfully inscribed by 

THE AUTHOR, 



PREFACE. 



[N presenting to the public a new work, more ambitious and comprehen- 
sive than anything of a simihir character yet issued, a few words rehitive 
to its scope and its design are deemed essential to a proper appreciation 
among those who know the circumstances under which the labor has been 
performed, and the purpose which the work is designed to subserve. 

In its character and scope, the work is designed to be commensurate with, 
and representative of, the fame and material grandeur of St. Louis. To this 
end the information and the arguments have been grouped in general depart- 
ments, and each , of these has been treated with such elaboration as its 
importance seemed to demand. 

In the history of the city, the greater attention has been given to that dim 
traditionary period, the record of which is fragmentary, and which, there- 
fore, requires our eflbrts to preserve from that decay which follows all 
events inscribed only in the recollection of men. The records of our later 
history as a city, have been too fully and voluminously kept to run the risk 
of oblivion, and their elaboration is left to some future historian. 

The statistics and facts, which set forth the present advancement of St. 
Louis in her material growth, have been collected with care, and are pre- 
sented without exaggeration or any unnecessary ornament. In their simplicity 
they are eloquent of a present full of grandeur, and a future glowing with 
brighter promise than the achievements of the past can even measure. In 
that promise, so plainly to be read, so far on its way to fulfillment, I see the 
consummation of my great ambition for the city of my home, the city of my 
ardent hope and love. 

That portion of the work devoted to biography, embellished, as it is, with 
the best productions of the engraver's art, is designed to be a faithful reflex of 
the moving force, the life and soul behind the marble, the iron and the brick, that 
in stately piles typify the swelling power of a new and wonderful civilization 
planted upon a congenial soil. As a whole, it is no egotism to say that it 
constitutes amine of information and instruction from which may be gathered 
sonie of the choicest events and episodes in the history of our country, 
and some of the brightest examples of well-directed endeavor. In this 
department, so essential to histoiy, there will be found neither flattery nor 
unmerited compliment, but such a representation as conscientious performance 
of a worthy labor can alone produce. Could we subtract biography from all 
history, we would have left but a succession of barren facts, in which there 



VI PREFACE. 

would be nothing to attract our sympathies or to guide our judgment. It is, 
therefore, becoming in those who record the eflbrts of individuals, to do so 
with a full sense of their responsibility, and in the consciousness that the 
teaching conveyed will grow stronger with each succeeding generation. 

Actuated bv these deep convictions this work has been prepared, and 
I therefore trust that its usefulness will extend far beyond my own times, and 
that when it is looked upon as a memento of the past, it will also be regarded 
as a prophecy that has met a triumphant fulfillment. 

With a full conviction that the city of London is not fixed in history as the 
final great city of the world, but that it heralds the one great city of the 
future, which all ci^'ilization is now hastening to build up on this continent, 
as the culminating work of the westward movement of the world's people on 
the globe, it is with heart-felt gratitude that I have been enabled to see 
some good results, as I believe, come to the public from my own labors. 
Especiallv am I grateful for the achievement won in being able to send out 
this volume to my people, representing, as it does, so much of their life and 
greatness — a people who, I believe, will in turn kindly regard it, and be char- 
itable in criticism, and generous in promoting its usefulness. 

In determining who was worthy of a place in the book, counsel has been 
taken of old citizens, most competent to judge, and while it cannot be claimed 
that it is complete in including all who are worthy a place in its pages, it is 
yet representative in its presentation of those of our citizens who have illus- 
trated and influenced our advancement in the higher walks of business and 
professional life. 

In the preparation of this work, it is but just to say that I have received 
valuable assistance from Messrs. Richard T. Bradley, John S. Dormer, 
and Colonel E. H. E. Jameson, gentlemen well known, not only in St. Louis 
but throughout the countrv, for their ability and scholarly attainments, their 
experience in journalism, and their literary accomplishments. 

L. U. REAVIS. 
August i, 1875. 



An Explanatop>^y Wof\d, 



This work is designkd to be a Presentation of Causes in 
Nature and Civilization, which, in their reciprocal action, 
WILL fix the position OF THE FUTURE GREAT CITY OF THE 
WORLD IN THE Central Plain of North America ; showing 

THAT THE CENTRE OF THE WoRLD's COMMERCE AND CIVILIZATION 
WILL, IN LESS THAN OnE HuNDRED YeARS, MOVE FORWARD IN ITS 

Westward Career, and be organized and represented in the 
Mississippi Valley, and by ST. LOUIS, occupying, as she does, 

THE MOST FAVORABLE POSITION ON THE CONTINENT AND THE GrEAT 

River . 



PROPHETIC VOICES ABOUT ST. LOUIS. 



St. Louis alone would be an all-sufficient theme; for who can doubt that this pros- 
perous metropolis is destined to be one of" the mighty centers of our mighty Republic. 
— Charles Sumner. 

Fair St. Louis, the future Capital of the I'nited States, and of the civilization of the 
Western Continent. — ^James Parton. 

A glance at the map of the United States shows what an interesting place St. Louis is 
destined to become, when the white population has spread itself more westwardly from 
the Mississippi, and up and along the Missouri River, perhaps it may yet become the 
capital of a great nation. — Duke of S.\xe-Weiiviar Eisenach, '-Travels in North 
America in 1825-26." 

New York Tribune, } 

New York, February 4, 1870. 5 
Dear Sir — I have tvvice seen St. Louis in the middle of winter. Nature made her 
the focus of a vast region, embodying a vast area of the most fertile soil of the globe. 
Man will soon accomplish her destiny by rendering her the seat of an immense industry, 
the home of a far-reaching, ever-expanding commerce. Her gait is not so rapid as that 
of some of her Western sisters, but she advances steadily and surely to her predestined 
station of first inland city on the globe. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

L. U. Reavis, Esq., Missouri. 

I also remember that I am in the city of St. Louis — destined, ere long, to be the great 
city on the continent (renewed cheers) : the greatest central point between the East and 
the West, at once destined to be the entrepot and depot of all the internal commerce of 
the greatest and most prosperous country the world has ever seen; connected soon with 
India by the Pacific, and receiving the goods of China and Japan : draining, with its 
immense rivers centering here, the great Northwest, and opening into the Gulf through 
the great river of this nation, the Father of Waters — the Mississippi. Whenever — and 
that time is not far distant — the internal commerce shall exceed our foreign commerce, 
then shall St. Louis take the very first rank among the cities of the nation. And that 
time, my friends, is much sooner than any one of us at the present time actually realizes. 
Suppose that it had been told to you — any one of you here present, of middle age, 
within twenty years past, that within that time such a city should grow up here, with 
such a population as covers the teeming prairies of Illinois and Indiana, between this 
and the Ohio, who would have realized the prediction .' And so the next quarter of a 
century shall see a larger population west of the Mississippi than the last quarter of a 
century saw east of the Mississippi ; and the city of St. Louis, from its central location, 
and through the vigor, the energy, the industry and the enterprise of its inhabitants, 
shall become the very first city of the United States of America, now and hereafter 
destined to be the great Republican nation of the world. — Gen. B. F. Butler. 

St. Louis is surrounded with dilapidated fortifications, which were at no period in a 
complete condition. The town is now in a state of very rapid improvement. Its situation 
is not only advantageous, but interesting; occupying a point where so many vast rivers 
mingle their streams, an increasing, rapid and lasting prosperity is promised to this town. 
Including Louisiana, St. Loiiis is the most central town yet built in the American Union. 
It may be in the course of human events the seat of empire, and no position can be more 
favorably situated for the accumulation of all that comprises wealth and power. — Wil- 
liam Darby. 181S. 



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•^ HEAT 



Headqitartkrs Army of the United States, | 
St. Loins. Mo., July i6, 187=^. j 

L. U. Reavis^ Esq.^ St. Louis., Mo.. : 

Dear Sir — I have your letter of July 15, asking me to express to you 
some thoughts about this city as the great city of the world. 

This is a big subject, and too large for me to grapple. I have every faith 
in the future of St. Louis, and have in part shown sinceritv by making it my 
home, and the future home of my family. 

I know that you are engaged in preparing a work on this subject, and I 
beg you will excuse me if I ask you to deal with m}' name in this connection 
as lightly as possible. My office is national. I may be ordered from one 
part to the other of the LInited States on a minute's warning, and cannot 
claim to be my own master. Therefore I must not localize myself; I must not 
claim for St. Louis what other places have a perfect right to claim for them- 
selves. 

I know your intense earnestness, and hope you are right in vour prognos- 
tications, and that you will make your work a credit to the citv and to vour 
self. • 

With great respect, your obedient sei"vant, 

W. T. SHERMAN. Ge^rra/ 



If it were asked whose anticipations of what has been done to advance civ- 
ilization, for the past fifty years, have come nearest the truth — those of the 
sanguine and hopeful, or those of the cautious and fearful — must it not be 
answered that none of the former class had been sanguine and hopeful enough 
to anticipate the full measure of human progress since the opening" of the 
present century? May it not be the most sanguine and hopeful only, who, 
in anticipation, can attain a due estimation of the measure of future change 
and improvement in the grand march of society and civilization westward 
over the continent? 

The general mind is faithless of what goes much beyond its own expe- 
rience. It refuses to receive, or it receives with distrust, conclusions, however 
strongly sustained by facts and fair deductions, which go much beyond its 
ordinary range of thought. It is especially skeptical and intolerant toward 
the avowal of opinions, however well founded, which are sanguine of great 
future changes. It does not comprehend them, and therefore refuses to 
believe ; but it sometimes goes further, and, without examination, scornfully 
rejects. To seek for the truth is the proper object of those who, for the past 
and present, undertake to say what will be the future, and, when the truth is 
found, to express it with as little reference to what will be thought oi it as 
if putting forth the solution of a mathematical problem. 

y. W. SCOTT. 



^^ 




SAINT LOUIS: 

THE METROPOLIS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



LETTER FROM JUDGE NATHANIEL HOLMES. 



L. U. Reavis^ Esq. : 

Dear Sir — Since you do me the honor to suppose that any ideas on the 
subject of your book may have some value, or some interest, I venture to lav 
the following observations before you for what they may be worth. 

The great cities of the world were not built in a day. The populous cities 
of the ancient world were, indeed, situated in the fertile valleys of great rivers, 
and far from the sea — as Thebes and Memphis on the Nile, Ayodha on the 
Ganges, and Babylon and Nineveh on the plains of Mesopotamia ; and some 
others again, like the primeval Sogd and Balkh, upon elevated interior pla- 
teaus. They were the work of centuries, and some of them survived the 
vicissitudes of sevei'al thousand years. The strides of the central marts of 
European commerce from Alexandria to Venice, to Lisbon, to Amsterdam, 
to London, are measured by periods of centuries. Population and trade move 
at more rapid rates in our time. Imagination easily leaps over a thousand 
years. It is not impossible that our city of St. Louis mav be "the future 
great city of the world," but if we are to come to practical facts for our day 
and generation, and take the safe and sure way, I think we may be content 
to set it down as both the present and future great citv of the Mississippi 
Valley. 

The first leading feature that impresses me is this: that St. Louis is a cen- 
tral mart, seated on the great southern water line of transport and trafhc, bv 
the river, the gulf, and the ocean ; and that Chicago is another, less central or 
quite eccentric, situated at the end of the great northern line of traffic and 
travel, by the lakes, canals and rivers to the sea. Both are, and will be, great 
centers for internal distribution ; but St. Louis is, or will be, in all the futiu'e, 
in this, the more central and important of the two. For exportation of 
products, Chicago has been, of recent years, the greater in quantitv and 
value ; but St. Louis, in this, has of late rapidly approached her, and in the 
near future may be expected even to surpass the Citv of the Lakes. Both 



XTV JITDGE IIOLMKS- T. K T T E R . 

reach out over the vast, fertile areas extending from the Alleghanies to the 
Rocky Mountains and hevond, and from the northern boundary to the Gulf 
of Mexico, to grasp in the growling trade of the Valley, both of import and 
export. Chicago reaches out by railroads ; St. Louis by both railroads and 
rivers. And here it may be w^ell to mark the changes that have taken place 
in the last thirty-five years or so. 

In 1839 (say), Chicago had vessels on the lakes (there were no railroads 
in those days), and had some four or five thousand inhabitants gathered upon 
a mud flat at the mouth of a deep ditch ; and a traveler could go by stage to 
La Salle, or Peoria, and thence by steamer to St. Louis ; or he could take the 
stage to Detroit, if he thought the vovage through Lake Huron would be too 
long, or if the lakes were frozen up. Galena, the chief town of the Upper 
Mississippi, was nearly beyond all practical access from that quarter, and her 
rich productions in lead, and all her trade, had to come down the river to St. 
Louis. St. Louis then had some sixteen thousand inhabitants, spreading over 
beautiful slopes and levels, and rested on solid foundations of building rock 
and brick earth, and commanded the whole navigation and trade of the rivers, 
from New Orleans to the falls of St. Anthony, and from Pittsburg to where 
Fort Benton now is, and beyond to the region of furs, and up and down the 
Illinois, the Arkansas, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee rivers. As to 
navigation, it was all the same thing then, and is now, and always will be, as 
if all these rivers met at one common point of junction, here at St. Louis : 
for each one, counting the Upper and the Lower Mississippi as two, had then, 
and still has, its own distinct trade and class of steamboats. But then, too, 
the greater part of Illinois and Michigan, nearly the whole of Wisconsin, 
Minnesota and Iowa, all Nebraska and Kansas, and the eiitire region west- 
ward to the Rocky Mountains and to the Pacific Ocean, was a wide, howling 
wilderness, and a mere hunting ground for the Indians. 

There was, of course, a large internal traffic, and a very considerable 
import and export through New Orleans and the sea, and through Pittsburg 
and the Ohio, to' the Eastern cities and to Europe, and to Brazil and the 
Islands and shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Emigration swarmed to the West 
from all the States of the Union, and from half the States in Europe. It 
astonished none but the blind that the population of the city of St. Louis 
grew, in twenty years, from sixteen to one hundred and sixty thousand. That 
in ten years more (from i860 to 1870), during the war period, it grew to 
310,000, might well astonish the most sanguine. Nearly all the heavy gro- 
ceries (salt, sugar, molasses, coftee, etc.,) from Louisiana, the W^est Indies 
and Brazil, and a large part of the heavier kinds of merchandise from Europe 
(iron, tin, hardware, crockery, liquors, German gimcracks included,) were 
then, as they are now (with the addition of many other leading articles), and 
will continue to be, more and more, in the future, imported, either directly, or 
more or less indirectly, into St. Louis, and distributed from this market ; and the 
bulkv products of the surrounding country, that could be spared to go abroad. 



JUDGK HOI.MES LETTER. \\ 

were exported mainly by the same channels. Such manufactures as could be 
made here, and were in demand for the Western country, rapidly grew up, 
and the manufacturers (as of stoves, castings, saddlery, mill machinery, 
steamboat machinery, white lead and oil, refined sugar, bagging and bale 
rope, tobacco, etc., etc.,) grew rich. And vSt. Louis had overtaken Cincin- 
nati before the war. Five years ago, the value of the imports paying duties 
here or at New Orleans, was five millions ; this last year it was eleven mil- 
lions. This must be taken as simply the small beginnings. 

The railroad system, in its westward movement, embraced Chicago first ; 
the regions immediately around Chicago first became the more densely settled 
and cultivated; and Eastern capital pushed her railroads out in all directions, 
largely taking away the trade of the Northwest from the rivers and St. Louis, 
and they had extended them even into Northern Missouri when the war shut 
up the Mississippi, and also stopped the progress of our incipient railroads ; 
and then, of course, the larger part of the trade went to Chicago, because it 
could go nowhere else. In the earlier days of the railroad era, you may have 
heard, it was with great difficulty that a charter could be obtained from the 
Illinois Legislature for the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, to terminate at St. 
Louis. Alton was to be the future great city. The Chicago and Alton Rail- 
road had to stop short at Alton, and so the Alton and Terre Haute Railroad ; 
but at length some shrewd operators managed to get a new charter for a new 
road from Alton to* Belleville, leaving the. route so vaguely defined by the 
bill, that it admitted of being so warped to one side in the location as to touch 
the river opposite to St. Louis, on its way to Belleville ; and so the terminus 
was practically established where the exigencies of commerce required it to 
be. The result now, is a second railro'xd straight from St. Louis to Terre 
Haute, and a great bridge for the accommodation of that and all the rest, 
which now seek a common depot in the heart of the city. In like manner, 
the Illinois Central Raih'oad was to be of no particular benefit to St. Louis. 
Cairo was to be another great city, and outstrip St. Louis. Now, practically, 
St. Louis is a principal terminus of that road, and it runs trains in and out to 
Cairo, Chicago, Dubuque and Sioux City — for such are the laws of trade and 
the exigencies of human affairs. Gradually, also, and more recently, the 
great lines of railroad running westwardly through Canada and from New 
York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, have been hauling down from the North, 
and stretching directly in straight, consolidated lines to the common central 
terminus at St. Louis. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, by the mouth of 
the Big Sandy River and Louisville, is fast coming, also ; and the Southeast- 
ern (St. Louis and Nashville), reaches into Georgia and South Carolina, prac- 
tically terminating at Charleston — two new spokes of the wheel. The war 
times built the Grand Central and Union Pacific Railroad, but it had to termi- 
nate at Omaha or nowhere, and go straight on to Chicago and the East. It 
was probably not expected to do St. Louis much good ; but St. Louis has 
tapped it at Omaha, and will soon strike it at Fort Kearney, by two or three 



XVI JUDCJK HOLMES LETTER. 

distinct lines, nearly straight, in continuation of the Missouri Pacific and the 
St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroads, the great western and north- 
western spokes of the wheel, and one hundred and fifty miles, at least, shorter 
than from the same point to Chicago (not forgetting the Kansas Pacific Rail- 
road to Denver and Cheyenne) ; and, again, it may be anticipated that the 
exigencies of trade and commerce will make that road, also, so far tributary 
to St. Louis as the great central mart may require. 

In the meantime, while the incubus of war is scarcely yet lifted, and many 
people are but half awake to the coming future, still dozing in the penumbra 
of the depression period (as if it were to last forever), St. Louis, I observe, 
has run out several important spokes of the great railroad wheel whereof she 
is the hub, or they have been run into St. Louis, stretching southeast, south- 
west, south, west, northwest, northeast, and north — to nearly all points of the 
compass — and when all are completed that are now in progress, or in prospect 
at no very distant day, they will present the wondrous spectacle of long lines 
of railroad radiating from the centre to the circumference, not merely of this 
valley but of the whole United States. It is even now made apparent to any 
one, bv a glance at your map, showing the direction of the more prominent 
lines of railroad, that such another railroad centre as St. Louis is now, or is 
fast becoming, is not possible on the map of the United States. 

So extensive a system of railroads cannot be completed in a day. The 
wonder is, that so much has been done in the short period since the war. It 
matters little whether it be the work of St. Louis capital or of foreign capital. 
Commercially, St. Louis is scarcely one generation old. In the Eastern cities 
are the accumulations of one or two centuries. The capital accumulated 
here, however large, is all employed in the immediate business of the city. 
The vast amount required for this rapid construction of long lines of railroad, 
must come chiefly from abroad. Meantime, it is not surprising that the busi- 
ness men of St. Louis turn their faces to the South and wSouthwest, where 
they have an almost exclusive monopoly of the trade, rather than to the North 
and Northwest, where they come into more stringent competition with 
Chicago and the Eastern cities. Everything cannot be done at once. At 
present the people of the Northwest are left to do mainly what they can for 
themselves to reach St. Louis. They have the rivers and some railroads 
already, and the important river improvements now in progress will ofl'set in 
some degree the obstructions of railroad bridges, and more railroads are 
soon to come. 

The Chicago railroads stretch directly westward across the Mississippi to 
the Missouri River, and some of them are bending southward through Mis- 
souri and Kansas, toward Texas and New Mexico. The St. Louis railroads 
cross them from north round to west, and in the race for competition it comes 
to the question here, to what extent, and in what kinds of merchandise, either 
central mart can command the advantage in traffic. Besides the St. Louis, 
Alton and Chicago, the St. Louis, Jacksonville and Peoria, and Louisiana, 



JUDGE H0LMP:S letter. XVII 

Qiiincy and Burlington, and the St. Louis, Rockford and Rock Island Rail- 
roads, two great northern spokes of the wheel, the St. Louis, Hannibal, 
Keokuk and Burlington Railroad, reaching by Cedar Falls to St. Paul, and 
by Galesburg to Chicago, and the northern branch of the St. Louis, Kansas 
City and Northern Railroad, reaching by the Central Railroad, of Iowa, to 
St. Paul and Duluth, not to mention others, are now nearing completion. 
The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad has, no doubt, been built in the 
interest of the North and East ; but the practical result, so far, is a terminus 
at St. Louis. To the extent that it will pay best, it may be expected to remain 
there. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad has been constructed so far, proba- 
bly, with little or no idea of conferring any special benefit upon St. Louis, 
but rather because the company saw money in the enterprise, and believed it 
would be a paying institution, even for capitalists of New York and Boston. 
The Iron Mountain Railroad is more especially a St. Louis road, but it 
requires the help of foreign capital (which can be had on good security and at 
good rates of interest,) to extend it into Texas. It reaches now to New 
Orleans, Mobile, Memphis and Chattanooga, constituting the great Southern 
spoke of the wheel. The natural competition of Chicago, as it sweeps round 
southwestwardly, gradually diminishes, and here comes nearl}' to zero. 

Consider, now, what is to be the state of things, particularly with reference 
the States lying northwest of the Mississippi River (for in other directions the 
matter is to need special comment), when the system of railroads is com- 
pleted. The distances by railroad will be, in general, shorter to St. Louis 
than to Chicago. The radiation of railroads will be somewhat analogous to 
the radiation of rivers, and St. Louis will have both systems in conjunction ; 
for the longer railroads, as naturally as the rivers, and by the same exigen- 
cies of trade and commerce, tend to concentration into one common centre at 
the great metropolitan city of the West. Here we come upon matters that 
lie peculiarly within the knowledge and experience of mercantile men. If I 
may hazard an opinion, I should say that there will be in this quarter a divided 
empire, with field enough for both competitors, and that the division will be 
much according to kind of merchandise and the sources whence it comes. 
Many kinds may reach that region more readily by the great Northern water 
route and the railroads from Chicago, while many other kinds will be obtained 
to greater advantage from the St. Louis market — as, for instance, our own 
manufactures, and many importations of European manufactures and pro- 
ducts, the heavy groceries from the West Indies and Brazil, and teas and 
silks from China and Japan. Various articles that are brought from distant 
parts of the globe in sailing vessels will continue to be imported almost exclu- 
sively into the Atlantic cities, where the necessary capital is, and where these 
vessels are built and owned, and these articles will reach the interior of 
the Northwest more easily by the northern water route than by railroads 
across the Alleghanies ; they cannot be imported from Europe, I presume, 
because they cannot pay one duty going into Europe, and another duty coming 



XVIII JUDGE HOLMES LETTER. 

into America from Ein-ope. But manufactures and products of the States of 
Eui'ope can be imported directly into St. Louis as well as into the Atlantic 
cities, when regular lines of steamships are established between European 
ports and New Orleans. 

The data furnished by experienced men demonstrate that the bulky produce 
of the country tributary to St. Louis can go from here to Liverpool by the- 
great Southern water route in bulk, cheaper than it can possibly be carried 
across the country by railroad to be exported from the Atlantic cities ; and 
when this route is fully inaugurated, as it doubtless will be before long, it 
stands to reason that importation to a much larger extent, and of more kinds, 
than has been dreamed of heretofore, will come back the same way to St. 
Louis, and be distributed from this market, even into the Northwest, cheaper 
than it can be done via Chicago — though the war swept American vessels 
from the ocean. Iron barges, elevators, a St. Philip canal, or the South Pass. 
Jetties, improved rivers and steamships, and more railroads, will do the busi- 
ness, and St. Louis, to a large and important extent, will become the rival so 
far, not merely of Chicago, but of New York and Boston, as an importing 
and exporting city ; so that it may be said some day. if not now, that St. Louis 
is the Southwestern and New York the Northwestern focus of the whole 
ellipse. In this fact lies one principal advantage of the position of St. Louis 
(if there be any at all) over Chicago, as an interior mart for the distribution 
of general merchandise. Our position in the centre of the coal fields and 
mineral regions of the Valley, and our facilities for various kinds of man- 
ufactures, not only of ii'on and steel, but for queensware, stoneware, tinware, 
plated ware, glass, zinc, silver, white lead and oil, refined sugar, tobacco, 
fui-niture, agricultural implements, and many other articles, is another great 
advantage of position. And a still greater is the position of St. Louis at the 
conjunction of the radiating river and railroad systems, in reference to the 
bulky agricultural products of the whole vast circuit of country (especially 
west of the Mississippi,) which they penetrate in all directions, comprising 
within a six hundred mile circle described on this centre nearly the entire area 
of the most fertile soil of the Mississippi Valley, the garden of America, if 
not of the whole earth. The importance of St. Louis in this particular, lies 
first, in its being a central mart for the internal distribution of home products 
in every direction, and second, in its being a receiving mart for exportation of 
the surplus. The annual statistics exhibit the present magnitude of this busi- 
ness. The increase in five years in grain, pork and cattle, is next to fabulous. 
Within the same period, the swell of the daily clearings, at the St. Louis 
Clearing House, from half a million a day to four and five millions a day, 
may be taken as some sure index of the increase in volume of the general 
commercial operations. The annual statement for the vear 1S72, shows an 
aggregate of clearings of $989,000, and an increase over the previous year of 
$133,000,000. The aggregate clearings were, for the year 1S73. $1,099,154,- 
351.90; for the year 1874, $1,192,532,761.70. 



JUDGE IIOLMTCS' LETTER. XIX 

In this view : as in the l-)cginning we glanced backward over a period of 
thirty years and more, suppose now we look forward through the next thirty 
vears. Considering the rate of progress in that past time, (and the rate will 
surely be no less in the future,) let any one try to imagine what will then be 
the condition of the country lying west of the Mississippi River, and for 
which St. Louis is clearly to be the principal commercial mart in this Valley. 
Population has, indeed, reached scatteringly nearly to the western limit of 
the fertile plains where sufficient rains make crops sufficiently certain. It has 
reached in some places even beyond the limit, where, without railroads or 
river navigation, it will pay to raise more crops than can be consumed on the 
ground. Not a tenth part of the intermediate ai'ea is occupied, and scarcely 
one-half of any one State is under improvement, much less under actual cul- 
tivation. These States are much in the condition now that Illinois, Indiana, 
Michigan, and Wisconsin were thirty years ago. What will bo the amount 
of products to be exported, or of merchandise to be imported, or manufac- 
tures to be supplied, for these States, when they have attained to the present 
condition of Illinois and Indiana, or Ohio.? It surely needs no prophet to 
foresee that it will require all the navigation that improved rivers and new 
arts can furnish, and all the railroads that time and money can build, to do it 
all ; and yet both may have enough to do. There is more now than both can 
do, and that is the great trouble. The remote Iowa or Nebraska farmer 
burns corn for fuel, because it costs more than it is worth to carry it to any 
market. When the rivers are low and frozen up, the railroads put on killing 
freights in sheer self-defense against the impossible. 

It takes time to settle, people, and improve a new country like this. I don't 
know that we should be in any great hurry to get it all done at once. It has, 
in former times, taken centuries to people a new country or to build a great 
city. I am quite sure it is not wise to undertake to build a city in a decade 
that might very well occupy a century. The growth of St. Louis is certainly 
rapid and extensive enough to answer all reasonable expectations, if not quite 
to amaze the most sanguine and impatient. In respect of population, in view 
of the average rates of increase for each period of ten years from. 1840 to 
1870, and particularly for the period between i860 and 1870, during which 
the rate was for the whole period 15,000 a year, and for the latter half of it 
at 31,000 a year, the average rate for the period between 1870 and 1880 can- 
not be expected to be less, and will, in all probability, be more than 20,000 a 
vear; and this will give a population of more than 500,000 in 1880. Already 
(1875) the population, on a safe estimate, exceeds 450,000. Let any one look 
over the past five years, and consider what has been done in that time : the 
additions that have been built up, the water-works constructed, the streets and 
wharves that have been improved, the splendid buildings that have been 
erected, the manufactures that have been initiated, the packet and barge 
lines and the elevators, the grain trade that has been created, the flour, pork 
and cattle trade, the tobacco and cotton trade, the millions invested in iron 



XX JUDGE HOLMES LETTER. 

works, the railroads that have come hito existence and are ni progress, the 
great bridge and tunnel and the new Lindell Hotel now completed, the new 
Chamber of Commerce nearly finished ; the new Post-office and Custom 
House Building well under way and to cost millions, — and then sayif he 
remembers any period of five years before the war in which anything like 
an equal advance was made. 

In conclusion, and in reference to population in general, I will merely 
glance at a topic that may not be wholly foreign to your purpose, but is too 
large to be handled effectually in this place. It is the remarkable fact that 
the several successive streams of westward migration of the white Aryan 
race, from the primitive Paradise in the neighborhood of the primeval cities 
of Sogd and Balkh, in High Asia, long separated in times of migration, and 
for the most part distinct in the European areas finally occupied by them, 
and which, in the course of its grand march of twenty thousand years or 
more, has created nearly the whole of the civilization, arts, sciences and litera- 
ture of this globe, building seats of fixed habitation and great cities, success- 
ively, in the rich valleys of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, the rivers 
and isles of Greece, the Tiber and the Po, the Danube, the Rhine, the Elbe, 
and the Seine and Thames, wandering children of the same great family are 
now, in these latter times, brought together again in their descendants and 
representatives, Semitic, Pelasgic, Celtic, Teutonic, and Sclavonic, here in 
the newly discovered common land of promise, and are commingled (espec- 
ially in this great Valley of the Mississippi.) into one common brotherhood of 
race, language, law and libertv. 

Yours, respectfullv. 

N. HOLMES. 

St. Louis, July 2:5. 1875. 




$Sicalo^(|> 



When it was determined to dedicate this work to some one of the enterprising and 
prominent citizens of St.. Louis, who had contributed in a high degree to her commercial 
and manufacturing growth, the author consulted many good men on the subject, and in 
reference to who was the man, among so many, most worthy to receive the compliment.' 
The favor was to be bestowed upon some man who had already done well for the city, and 
gave promise of still greater usefulness, and that man was thought to be Daniel R. 
G.4RRISON, as the following complimentary cards will testify : 



Dear Garrison : — Mr. Reavis has just called on me, and I hear he intends to dedi- 
cate his new book to you. 

I know of no one who has done more for the prosperity of this city, or led a more 
active and useful life to the public than yourself, and I think, for the public benefit, as 
well as your own, you ought to have the dedication of the book. 

Your friend, 

April 20, 1875. C. GIBSON. 



My Dear Garrison : — Mr. Reavis showed me, a few days since, a dedication of his 
forthcoming work to yourself. It met my cordial approval, and I now wish to say to you, 
as I learn that you have had some diffidence and modesty about the matter, that I do not 
know of any representative man of our great industrial interests, (and St. Louis is indus- 
trial or nothing,) to whom it could more appropriately be dedicated than to one who 
found our city with arms of clay, and who will have left it with ai-ms of iron and steel. I 
think, therefore, that you should unhesitatingly accept the prominence it will give, and I 
can assure you that no one of your friends more truly rejoices in your growing and well- 
earned fame than myself. 

Very truly, yours. 

St. Louis. April 29, 1S75. ... ^ GRATZ BRQWN. 



L. U. Reavis, Esq., St. Louis, Mo.: 

Dear Sir — I have received your letter of the 27th, saying that you propose to dedicate 
your " great work " to Daniel R. Garrison, Esq., of this city. In a busy, prosperous com- 
munity like this, it is a hard task to select a special one, but I surely agree with you that it 
would be hard to choose a name more worthy of honor than that of D. R. Garrison. 

Long identified with the industries of St. Louis, active, busy, generous and manly, he 
certainl}' is a model man for the growing millions of this region, and if your book will be 
construed to mean this, 1 surely approve your choice. 

With great respect, yours truly, ■ 

St. Louis. June 28, 1875. W. T. SHERMAN, General. 




^. yp,^p^L^ 



Ci^n.^^^^ ey-i^^z. 



DANIEL RANDALL GARRISON 



^T~{0 voung men, making their entrance upon active lite, with great 
I ambitions, conscious capacities, and high hopes, the prospect is, in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, most perplexing. They see 
every avenue of prosperity thronged with their superiors in experience, 
in social advantages, and in the possession of all the elements of success. 
Every post is occupied, every office tilled, every path crowded. Where 
shall we tind room? It is related of Mr. Webster that when a young 
lawyer suggested to him that the profession to which he had devoted 
himself was crowded, the great statesman replied : " Young man, there 
is always room enough at the top." Never were wiser, or more sug- 
gestive words spoken. There unquestionably is always room enough at 
the top, where excellence lives. Mr. Webster was not troubled for lack 
of room. Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were never crowded. All the 
great legal lights of the present day have plenty of space around them. 
The brilliant pulpit orators of the time would never know, in their per- 
sonal experience, that it was hard to obtain a desirable ministerial charge. 
The profession is not crowded where they are. Dr. Brown-Sequard, 
Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. Hammond, are not troubled for space at their 
•elbows. When Nelaton died in Paris, he died like Moses, on a moun- 
tain. When Von Grasfe died in Berlin, he had no neighbor at his alti- 
tude. Stevenson, the entjineer, and our own Fulton, worked out the 
great problems of steam and its uses, as applied to the locomotive and 
steamboats in their day, and still there was an abundance of room for 
others to solve more completely their problems and practical theories. 

It is well that all young men should learn that nothing will do them 
so much injury as quick and easy success, and that nothing will do them 
so much good as a struggle which teaches them exactly what there is in 
them ; educates them gradually to its use ; instructs them in personal 
economy ; drills them into a patient and persistent knowledge of work, 
and keeps them at the foot of the ladder until they become strong enough 
to hold every step they are enabled to gain. 



XXIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

The tirst years of every man's business or professional life are years 
of education. They are intended to be so in the order of Nature and 
Providence. Doors do not open to a man until he is prepared to enter 
them. The man without a wedding garment may get in surreptitiously, 
but he immediately goes out with a flea in his ear. It is probabl}^ the 
experience of most successful men, who have watched the course of 
their lives in retrospect, that whenever they have arrived at a certain 
point where they are thoroughl}^ prepared to go higher, the door to a 
higher place has swung back of itself, and they have heard the call to 
enter. The old die, or voluntarily retire to rest. The best men who 
stand ready to take their places will succeed to their position, its honors 
and emoluments. 

One can fancy that every calling is pyramidal in its living constituency, 
and that while one man is at the top, there are several tiers of men below 
him who have plenty of elbow room, and that it is only at the base that 
men are so thick that they pick the meat out of one another's teeth to 
keep from starving. If a man has no power to get out of the rabble 
at the bottom, then is he self-convicted of having chosen a calling or 
profession to whose duties he has no adaptation. In the realm of emi- 
nent acquirements and eminent integrity, there is always room enough. 
Let no young man of industry and perfect honesty despair because his 
profession or calling is crowded. Let him always remember that there 
is room enough at the top ; and that the question whether he will ever 
reach the top, or rise above the crowd at the base of the pyramid, will 
be decided by the way in which he improves the first ten years of hi& 
active life in securing to himself a thorough knowledge of his profession, 
and a sound moral and intellectual culture. 

We have in Daniel R. Garrison, whose life-like portrait on steel 
accompanies this sketch, a man who has compassed within his own expe- 
rience an amount of beneficent enterprise and well-directed labor that, 
were what he alone has accomplished thus far, in his busy life, parceled 
out among half a score of men, it would make the life-work of each very 
large. He is one of the many who stood at the base of our imaginary 
pyramid many years ago, and, by the force of his wonderful energy 
and indomitable will, has reached the top. No detail of his great 
enterprises has been too trivial ibr his attention ; no operation so stupen- 
dous as to prevent his entire comprehension of it. 

He was born near Garrison's Landing, on the Hudson River, in 
Orange County, New York, November 23, 1815. That favored section,, 
so rich in historical associations and every charm that nature can supply ». 



DANIEI> R. GARRISON. XXV 

was his boyhood home. From that section, nurtured in an atmosphere 
of grand traditions, have come many of the men who have been the 
admired of capitals, the oracles of senates, the statesmen ,of great 
emergencies, and the devotees and patrons of literature and the arts. 

His father. Captain Oliver Garrison, owned and commanded the first 
line of packets that ran between West Point and New York, before 
steamboats were known. His paternal ancestors were of the old Puritan 
stock of New England. His mother came from the old Holland stock 
which had settled in that section of New York at an earlv day- Her 
family connections embraced such names as the Schuylers, Buskirks and 
Coverts — all historical names — she being a native of New Jersey. 

In 1829, Daniel's father removed to what was considered the far West, 
and settled in Buffalo, where his son obtained employment with the firm 
of Bealls, Wilkinson & Co., engine builders, with whom he remained 
until 1833. On the tenth of June of that year, occurred an incident of 
considerable importance in }'oung Garrison's life. Mr. Webster was 
then on a visit to Bufi'alo, and Mr. Garrison was one of three young men 
who presented that distinguished statesman with a skillfully-constructed 
card table, which they had made themselves, and which was composed 
of nearly every description of American wood. A silver center-piece 
bore an appropriate inscription, together with the makers' names, and 
the date of presentation. The gift was a testimonial of their indorse- 
ment of Mr. Webster's tariff' views. 

In the fall of 1833. Mr. Garrison went to Pittsburg, Pennsvlvania, and 
engaged himself, as an employe, at the pattern and machine business, in 
one of the larijest establishments in that citv. Here he remained for two 
years. In 1835, he came to St. Louis and secured emplovment, at the 
head of the drafting department, in the foundry and engine works of 
Kingsland, Lightner & Co., where he applied himself closelv to work. 
He remained in this employment for a period of five years, when, in 
1840, in connection with his brother. Oliver Garrison, he commenced 
the manufacture of "steam engines. The many advantages St. Louis 
presented as a manufacturing point had been thoroughly revolved in his 
mind — a mind naturally so e^uick in its perceptions as to seem instinctive 
rather than philosophical, and his judgment was seldom at fault. Manu- 
facturing establishments at this time were comparatively few, and nearly 
all manufactured articles were brought here from other points. No large 
capitalists had then invested their wealth in the establishment of manu- 
factories west of the Mississippi, and it was by slow advances, at first, 
that anv progress was made in that direction. Coal and iron were to be 



XXVI BIOGRAPHICALSKETCH. 

had in abundance ; labor was cheap ; and it was only a question of time 
as to when St. Louis would present her claims to be regarded as one of 
the great manufacturing centres of the Union. 

The shops of the Garrison Brothers were commenced on a moderate 
scale, but, as business prospered, their capacity was increased to meet 
the growing wants of the times, until nearly every kind of steam 
machinery in use was manufactured by them. This enterprise of the 
Garrison Brothers gave great impetus to the manufacturing interests of 
the city, and the example of their success induced others to erect sim- 
ilar establishments. During these busy years, Mr. Garrison found reallv 
no time for leisure. Every piece of work turned out from his estab- 
lishment, from its inception to its completion, passed under his personal 
supervision. All the drafting of the establishment was done by him : 
and there was no detail of the business that he was not thoroughly con- 
versant with, — no part of the work to be done so trivial that he did not 
examine and understand it. 

In the year 1848, news of the discover}- of gold in California spread 
over the whole countr}-, and excited the cupidity of all. Mr. Garrison 
early came to the conclusion that there was presented a new and profit- 
able field for enterprise. He correctly reasoned that steamboats would 
lind lucrative employment on California rivers, as soon as they could be 
obtained. With this object in view, Mr. Garrison left for San Francisco 
February 15, 1849, ^"^ after a somewhat tedious journey, by way of 
the Isthmus, he reached San Francisco in safety. Finding the reports 
of the rich gold discoveries fully confirmed, he immediately wrote to his 
brother, Oliver, to send him at once three large engines. These were 
forwarded to San Francisco in due course of time, by the way of Cape 
Horn, and reached their destination in the fall of 1849. ^"^ ^* these 
Mr. Garrison sent to Oregon, for service in a steamer which he built 
near the mouth of the Willamette river ; another was put in a boat built 
for the navigation of the Sacramento river ; and the third was placed in 
a saw mill at some point in the interior. These enterprises, and others 
engaged in, resulted. in great pecuniary success. 

Having finished his business in California, he made a trip to Puget 
Sound, going through Oregon by the Cowlips river, in a canoe propelled 
by four trust}' Indians. While making this trip, he met with a small 
vessel in Puget Sound loading with furs and peltries on London account, 
which had been sent to that point by the Hudson Bay Compan}'. His 
business completed, he took passage on this vessel for home, but, after 
some time of fair sailing, the vessel was becalmed, and drifted idly for 



DANIEL R. GARRISON. XXVII 

many days in the current of the Pacific Ocean. In passing along what 
was then known as the great Cahfornia coast, he, at a former time, 
had observed a gigantic rock, on whose barren and bleak top a cedar 
tree had taken root. This was a conspicuous object, and when, after 
drifting through dense fogs, the vessel was found to be in its immediate 
vicinit\^ Mr. Garrison knew its exact position. When on board of the 
United States steamer California, Lieutenant Budd commanding, this 
object had been pointed out to him, and Lieutenant Budd had put it 
down upon his chart as Cape Ray. Being near the coast, the winds 
favored them again, and the vessel was turned for the harbor of San 
Francisco, where fresh supplies of water and provisions were taken 
aboard, and a new start on the homeward bound trip was commenced. 
Mr. Garrison returned to St. Louis via the Isthmus of Panama in 
1850 ; and soon after, himself and brother retired from the machine 
works they had founded, each the possessor of a handsome fortune 
which they could enjoy as best suited their tastes and inclinations. But 
a man of Mr. Garrison's active temperament was not likely to remain 
long at leisure. One great wonder of the day — uniting St. Louis 
directly with the East — had been completed in 1847 ; but the theme ol 
the magnetic telegraph had lost its novelty. There was a mania abroad 
in the land about this time, for railroad extension, and the paramount 
desire of almost every Western city of importance was to become a link 
in the great chain of railroads which was being fast extended through- 
out the Union, thus placing distant points in close proximity. While 
one or two lines of railroad had been commenced and only partially 
completed on the west side of the Mississippi, St. Louis had no railroad 
connection whatever in any direction at this time. On the east, railroad 
connection had been made with Cincinnati, and it was the grand project 
to extend this connection so as to unite the Mississippi river and the 
East by rail, making this city the objective point. It is not necessary 
here to enter into all the details of the grand project. Suffice it to say 
that it was decided that St. Louis must have an outlet by rail to the 
East; that the "Ohio and Mississippi'' railroad must be completed, and 
that the proper man to undertake the task was Daniel R. Garrison. At 
the earnest solicitation of his friends and prominent citizens of St. Louis, 
he undertook the task, and became vice-president and general manager 
of the road. To aid in completing it, the propriety- of taking measures 
to authorize the citv of St. Louis to subscribe five hundred thousand 
dollars was considered at a public meeting called for the purpose, at 
which a good deal of bitter opposition was developed. However, the 



XXVIII BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Legislature was applied to, with success, to pass a law authorizing the 
people of St. Louis county to decide the measure by popular vote. The 
vote was taken, and the requisite stock subscribed. The fact that 
Mr. Garrison had undertaken to complete the road was full assurance 
that it would be done. Messrs. Page & Bacon, who were doing an 
extensive banking business at that time, had embarked largely in the 
enterprise previously, and had met with many serious difficulties ; but 
when Mr. Garrison took the enterprise in hand, they saw their wav 
clear. He pushed the road to Vincennes, Indiana, and in 1855 it was 
completed from that point to Cincinnati. The energy and consummate 
skill shown by Mr. Garrison in the completion of this road in the face 
of many discouragements, is fairly typical of the genius and energy of 
the man. Citizens of St. Louis, and those residing in the counties 
along the line of the road in Illinois, who had almost violently opposed 
public subscriptions to the project, used every argument and means in 
their power to thwart him in every measure he sought to have adopted. 
Those not personally cognizant of the surrounding circumstances, can 
have no correct idea of the difficulties he had to contend with. Old 
residents of this city, who had observed all Mr. Garrison's movements, 
inform us that but for the almost herculean labors he performed, the 
appliances he brought to bear in the prosecution of his work, and the 
indomitable will and energy of the man, many years would have 
elapsed, in all probability, before the road would have been completed. 
As it was, he laid the last rail of the first railroad that cemented the 
Mississippi with the East, and gave St. Louis her first railroad connec- 
tion with the world beyond her to the East. 

An incident worthy of note occurred about the time the road was 
approaching completion, which will serve to show the pluck of the man, 
and the tactics he resorted to in order to finish it, without further out- 
side or legal interference. When all but about seven miles of the road 
had been finished, Mr. Garrison discovered that he was short of iron. 
Where to obtain a supply, to make up this deficiency, was a serious 
question. There was not a single pound of railroad iron to be had 
anywhere in the country for any consideration whatever. He had iron 
then on the way from England, and its arrival had been daily expected, 
but for all he knew it might have been deposited in the depths of the 
ocean. Days and weeks, and even months, might elapse before it 
would reach here and be available. Here was a serious emergency- ; 
and the question as to what was best to do, forced itself upon his mind. 
That a great enterprise on which millions of dollars had been expended. 



D A N I E I. R . G A R R I S O N . XXIX 

and on the speedy completion of which the great commercial marts, 
situated alon<r the <rrand central line or the commercial traffic of the 
country were dependent, should be delayed for want of seven miles of 
iron, was certainly a misfortune. It so happened that a considerable 
quantity of railroad iron, belonging- to the old Terre Haute Road w^as 
lying on the St. Louis levee, and was not then wanted for immediate 
use by the Terre Haute Company. This iron had been imported from 
England, and was certainly not intended for use, by the Terre Haute 
Company, in the building of any competitive road. No monetary 
consideration could have purchased a pound of it for such a purpose. 
It was necessary, however, that this iron should be transferred to the 
east bank of the river for use by the company owning it. It is quite 
probable that when this transfer was being made, at this very opportune 
time, a portion of it reached the immediate vicinity of the Ohio and 
Mississippi Road ; and it is also possible that a sufficient amount to 
complete seven miles of an}- road may have been misplaced on the 
construction cars of that road. Mr. Garrison had a ver}- large force of 
men in his employ at that time, and it was, perhaps, impossible to keep 
a close watch of all their movements. They might have supposed that 
this iron being transferred was a part of that belonging to the Ohio and 
Mississippi Road, which had been daily expected for some weeks. Be 
these suppositions as they ma3% another effort was now made to thwart 
Mr. Garrison in his efforts to complete the road. One morning the 
Sheriff of St. Clair county. Illinois, wdth a posse of men, appeared upon 
the scene with a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Garrison and authority to 
seize about seven miles of railroad iron which, the warrant alleged, was 
the propertv of the old Terre Haute Road. Here w^as a dilemma, and 
how to get out of it was the question that at once presented itself to 
Mr. Garrison. His men may have made a mistake, but the grand 
project was to hnish the road at all risks. If possession was nine points 
in law, the law was certainl}- in Mr. Garrison's favor, and he had no 
time, just then, to argue the tenth point. His quick mind suggested 
a plan of escape. He received the Sheriff and his men kindly, and, 
having some urgent business along the line of the road, invited the 
Sheriff and his men to take a ride, when the matter could be talked 
over and either settled or compromised. The Sheriff accepted the 
invitation, and, with his posse, stepped into the car to enjoy the novelty 
of a ride over the newlv laid rails of the Ohio and Mississippi Road. 
After a word in private with the engineer, and certain imperative orders 
given, in a quiet way, to the section foreman, Mr. Garrison joined the 



XXX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Sheriff and his part}' in the car, and with the cry ot' "all aboard," the 
engineer opened the throttle valve of his engine and the entire party 
were at once speeding away at the rate of full thirty miles an hour. 
Mr. Garrison soon placed himself beyond the jurisdiction of St. Clair 
county, where the Sheriff and his men were powerless to serve any 
legal papers. There he left them. Suffice it to say that before the 
SherifTwas enabled to reach his home, the Ohio and Mississippi Road 
had been completed — the last spike driven — through the systematic, 
harmonious and far-sighted policy of Daniel R. Garrison. 

The completion of this road was a marked event in the commercial 
history of St. Louis. It was appropriately celebrated, and the mer- 
chants of St. Louis presented Mr. Garrison with a costly and magnifi- 
cent service of solid silver, as a mark of their respect and appreciation 
of his efforts in giving to St. Louis her lirst railroad connection with the 
East. 

Mr. Garrison continued to manage the affairs of the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Railroad Company until 1858, when he had made the road a 
perfect success. During this time he was elected a director of the 
Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, and subsequently became its \dce- 
president. This road, at the time of the outbreak of our civil war in 
1861, had been completed from St. Louis to Sedalia, where the work 
had stopped, partly on account of the war, but mainly for want of 
means to continue its prosecution. The war clouds had now cast their 
dark shadows over almost every commercial enterprise in the land, and 
especially over railroad enterprises in the West — particularly in Mis- 
souri — where there was a strong conflict of war opinions. The greatest 
embarrassments existed in getting anything done. The completion of 
the Missouri Pacific from St. Louis to Kansas City, a distance of two 
hundred and eighty-two miles, was a consummation devoutly wished, 
but it seemed as though for the time being, inventive genius was stifled, 
improvement despised, and every energy of the people paralyzed. 
Efforts were made to induce Eastern capitalists to come forward and 
assist in the completion of the road, but these efforts were only partially 
successful. It was under the most unfavorable auspices that Mr. 
Garrison stepped forward and offered to complete it. By many leading 
citizens a good deal of anxiety was felt, but the question was one of 
means, and where the money could be obtained to carry it through. 
Those opposed to Mr. Garrison's policy made a bitter fight against 
him, and in every possible way he was hindered by some of his col- 
leagues — men who lived long enough afterwards, when he achieved 



DANIEL R . G A R R I S O N . XXXI 

success, to regret the bitter and unrelenting warfare the}' had waged 
against him. He was by no means disconcerted, however, b}' their 
opposition. He had lived the greater portion of his life by the labor of 
his own hands, and could do so wholly when it became necessary to the 
fearless discharge of his duty. He saw clearly that if the building of 
this road was to be left to the mercy of individual selfishness and 
caprice, it would not be completed at all ; at least within any reasonable 
period of time. He knew well that the general good was only to be 
obtained through general etlbrt, and that there ought not to be anything 
narrow, partial, envious or exclusive in the policy that should govern its 
completion. It is a fact, that the seeming personal interest of many 
were directly adverse to its construction — impelling them to impede 
rather than advance it. 

Mr. Garrison was not disturbed by the opposition. He knew his 
resources. He had made up his mind that the road must be built. He 
first made application to the Legislature to release the State's first 
mortgage on the road from Dresden west, and to take a second mort- 
gage on the whole road, in which he was successful. He induced the 
people of St. Louis county to come forward and loan its credit to the 
road ; and he also persuaded counties west of St. Louis, through which 
the road passed, to raise money for the same purpose. 

But the times were out of joint. A desolating war had commenced, 
and Missouri was the theatre of most active operations between the 
Federal and Confederate armies. The demoralization of the war, the 
destruction of the habits and sentiments, the motives and order of peace- 
ful life, which war usually makes ; the impaired reverence for legal 
right, civil authority, and for the sacredness of property and human 
life, which it generates ; the impatience of peaceful economy and regu- 
lar industry ; the thirst for excitement and gambling ventures ; the vices 
and violences wont to wait upon all wars, and especially civil wars, — 
these constituted the danger to Missouri at this time, and made it hazard- 
ous to engage in such enterprises as Mr. Garrison had undertaken. 

The great obstacle that presented itself to him in undertaking to carry 
out his purpose, was the menacing presence of two hostile armies in 
the State, constantly marching and countermarching over the magnifi- 
cent domain through which the Missouri Pacific line was to run. Mr. 
Garrison, at the outbreak of the war, from the very moment when the 
news was received that the first gun had been fired at Fort Sumter, 
declared himself an unconditional Union man; 'and when the Confed- 
erate flag was flying openly, over the heads of passers-by, in all the 



XXXII BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

principal streets of St. Louis, and the national colors were spit upon, 
he unfurled the starry banner from the windows of his own house, 
and stood bravely b}^ prepared to protect it with his own life, from any 
treasonable hand that should dare to pull it down. It was, therefore, a 
seemingly dangerous enterprise for him to undertake to build a road, 
W'hich required his personal supervision, surrounded by all the circum- 
stances incident to the war. During its progress, he stood, as it were, a 
kind of mediator between the two contending armies, in order to save 
his property from destruction. He had to have a large number of men 
in his employ, also horses and mules, together with ample stores of pro- 
visions and feed, which he was obliged to protect from pillage, and 
which, by his peculiar adaptation to meet all emergencies, he managed 
to save, although the contending armies were fighting all around him, in 
desperate conflict for the maintenance of two hostile principles. More 
than once he periled his life to push forward his undertaking, and 
repeatedly had warnings that his life was in danger, but to these he paid 
little attention, and his courage never forsook him. 

Before the close of the war, the road was finished, through a mag- 
nificent region to Kansas City, on the western boundary of the State. 
The completion of this line of road was another splendid triumph, and 
added a fresh laurel to Mr. Garrison's fame. 

In its success his own personal fortune was largely involved, together 
with the fortune of many others, for Mr. Garrison had raised a very 
large sum of money to complete the road, on his and their respon- 
sibility. The directory of the road had millions at stake : but they had 
an unwavering faith in Mr. Garrison — had given him carte blanche to 
go ahead ; in fact, had staked nearly everything on him. The men 
who stood by him in the completion of this road, and who comprised 
the directory, included such names as Robert Campbell, Henry L. 
Patterson, George R. Taylor, Oliver O. Hart, Charles H. Peck, 
Robert Barth, Adolphus Meier, and others. 

The original gauge of the Missouri Pacific road was five and a half 
feet, but the directory, at a later period, to conform to that of other 
roads, decided to change it to four feet eight and a half inches. Could 
this be done along the whole line of the road from St. Louis to 
Kansas City, without causing any interruption to travel or to the busi- 
ness of the road ? Mr. Garrison decided that it could ; that the work 
along the whole distance of two hundred and eighty miles, could be 
accomphshed in less than sixteen hours ; and while all were incredulous, 
the directory permitted Mr. Garrison to undertake it. Such a thing 



DANIEL R. GARRISON. XXXIII 

had never before been attempted, but on Sunday, July — 1869, the 
entire work of changing the gauge, including switches and frogs, was 
performed in sixteen hours, without any interruption of travel over the 
entire distance. On the evening of that day Mr. Garrison left St. Louis 
on the train, carr3dng the United States mail, and reached Kansas City 
on schedule time, and the train which left Kansas City also reached 
St. Louis on time, and without having met with any delay. The gauge 
of a large number of locomotives and much of the rolling stock had 
previously been changed to conform to the new gauge. Mr. Garrison 
performed this feat (which has since been done on the Ohio and Miss- 
issippi road and the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada), by his wonder- 
ful faculty of concentrating, utilizing and directing labor. 

These triumphs of Mr. Garrison's energ}^, sagacity and industry 
would doubtless suffice to keep his name fresh in the recollections of 
our people long after he shall have passed away. But he has achieved 
other triumphs, and, without mention of them, no sketch of his life 
would be complete. Enough has been written to show that Mr. Gar- 
rison is eminently a self-made man, whose whole mind runs decidedl}' 
in the direction of everything that is practical — of the greatest service — 
and which will confer the greatest and most lasting benefits, not only 
upon those personally and pecuniarily interested with him, but upon the 
public at large. In the common acceptation of the term he is not a 
learned man, but his education has made him a reasonable man. He is a 
man of vast and comprehensive thought, which seems to direct itself to 
the development of his country rather than to the consideration of his 
own interests ; but knowing that whatever can be done to develop the 
city or the country must necessarily benefit every one, directly or indi- 
rectly, who resides in and is a part of it. Practically, his mind was 
very materially enlarged and developed by the building and opening up 
of these two railroads. He saw, in the building of the Atlantic and 
Pacific Railroad, the great future of the country west of the Mississippi 
river, and he had, b}- investigation, confirmed his mind in a knowledge 
of its great resources — mineral, mechanical and commercial. He saw 
as clearly as though endowed with prescience, the future of St. Louis 
as a great manufacturing city, and his attention was instinctively turned 
to iron as the basis of its great prosperity. Having acquired so grccit a 
control over moneyed men and capitalists East by his practical operations 
in the past, he was able, as probably no other one man could be at that 
time, to combine ample capital for the purpose of building a raill mill, 
and the consequence of his efibrt was the establishment of the Vulcan 



XXXIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Iron Works, at South St. Louis. "I happen to know," said the Hon. 
John Hogan, in a speech made upon the opening of these works, "that 
but for the fortunate circumstances of a combination by which Daniel 
R. Garrison was thrown out of the Pacific Raih-oad, we would not have 
been to-day celebrating the establishment of a rail mill in St. Louis. He 
was thrown out of it, and he went among his friends and gathered up 
capital, a Httle, and a httle, and a little, and, by diligence and perse- 
verance, skill and energy, when nobody thought that Daniel R. Garri- 
son or any other Garrison would have accomplished the result, he did 
what we see to-day, and look at it ! " 

In the spring of 1870 he left the management of the Pacific Road, and 
upon completing the organization of the company, he was chosen presi- 
dent of the Vulcan Iron Works. Ground was broken for the erection 
of the works July 4, 1870. A large number of invitations had been 
sent out, but the attendance was mainl}^ confined to those more imme- 
diately interested in the building of the works. In one short year from 
the commencement of the works, they were completed and in success- 
ful operation, being the first mill of the kind built west of the Missis- 
sippi River, and one of the largest in the countr}^ The works emplo}- 
nearly one thousand men, and their annual product is eighty thousand 
tons of pig and railroad iron. This was the consummation of a grand 
idea that Mr. Garrison and a few other enterprising citizens had cher- 
ished for years — to make, in this iron State, rails out of Missouri iron 
to build Missouri and other Western railroads. 

In connection with the Vulcan Iron Works, Mr. Garrison and his 
friends constructed the Jupiter Iron Works, one of the largest furnaces 
in the world. The capital to carry on these great enterprises to comple- 
tion has been acquired mainly through confidence in the subject of this 
sketch — the faith and confidence of those interested with him in his 
ability to prosecute to a successful termination whatever he undertakes, 
and reHance upon his own judgment as to their positive value. 

But these works, grand as they are in themselves, are but the pio- 
neers of other and greater, and more numerous works of power and 
mechanism and glorious progress, that are to follow. A long-cherished 
thought of Mr. Garrison has been to construct, in connection with the 
Vulcan Iron Works, works for the production of Bessemer steel. The 
announcement is made as we draw this sketch to a close, that the plans 
of the new works are already matured, and the building of suitable 
houses will be speedily commenced ; and Mr. Garrison has been 
re-elected president of the consohdated company in charge of the 



DANIEL R. GARRISON. XXW 

"Vulcan Iron and Steel Works, under the reorganization which took 
place Ma}^ 7. As at present projected, the Vulcan Works are modeled 
after the J. Edgar Thompson Bessemer works of Pittsburgh, with some 
improvements which experience in that establishment has demonstrated 
to be necessary to completeness. The cost of the works, as now 
projected, will exceed half a milHon of dollars, making the entire 
capital invested more than $2,500,000. We have thus marked the 
point from which St. Louis takes another stride in the onward march 
to that grand destin}^ which the future has in store for her. 

In all these great enterprises of his life, Daniel R, Garrison has had 
the countenance and assistance and special advice of his brother, 
Oliver Garrison, and a few warm personal friends and capitalists of 
St. Louis. 

The indomitable energy of these brothers has produced remarkable 
results. But for many years past Daniel R. Garrison has been the 
active working man of the family. 

Few men have done so much for the real prosperity of the West as 
Mr. Garrison ; and few men having accomplished so much, are so silent 
and reticent concerning their labors. 

Mr. Garrison is a man of powerful frame, and capable of great 
physical or mental endurance. He is a most plain, unassuming gentle- 
man in his manners — kindly and courteous, yet decided. His expres- 
sion is very frank and candid, while there is an air of pleasantry and 
good nature that is wonderfully attractive to a stranger. Mr. Garrison 
numbers a host of warm friends, with scarcely an enemy. 

His life has been a busy one, and his success has not been the result 
of chance or good luck, which is a futiHty, but of vigorous, well- 
directed efforts. 

He is now vice-president and assistant general manager of the 
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and its connections. In executive abil- 
ity and good management, he has no equal in the West, and but 
few in the country. He is yet in the strength of vigorous manhood, 
although his children have grown up and married around him. 

No other man fills a similar place in the history of St. Louis and her 
railroads. Daniel R. Garrison stands alone. He is another eminent 
example of what energy, industry and perseverance will accomplish 
when judiciously applied, and when he takes hold of an enterprise, 
however great the magnitude, his name is a sure guarantee of its 
success. 



XXXVI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

By his own efforts he has risen above the crowd at the base of the 
pyramid, and in the realm of eminent acquirements and eminent integ- 
rity he still finds plenty of room at the top. 

In presenting this sketch to the public, it is well to say that it is the 
history of one of those men whom Providence has given to the people to 
fill a compensating link in the chain of usefulness and adaptation which 
often, to the eye of the superficial observer, seems to be lacking under 
the rule of wisdom. 

There are times in the affairs of men and nations, when there seems 
to be an absolute want of those strong intellectual characters so essential 
to the direction and leadership in commerce and government ; when the 
people feel that mediocrity pervades the entire land ; but Providence, 
true to its exacting law of compensation, always supplies in one field of 
usefulness that which is wanting in another ; and if we have not in our 
midst a Benton in politics, we have, in the person of such men as 
Garrison, Caesars in the great field of commercial activity, who, with 
large brains to conceive, and physical power to execute, are constantly 
subserving the purposes of Providence by maintaining an equilibrium in 
the operation of the law of compensation. 




^: 



sv/3 0^ 



^ 



A. 



HISTORICAL REVIEW 



OF 



SAINT LOUIS. 



FROM ITS 



FOUNDATION TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



SAIMT LOUIS, 



THE 



Future Great City. 



HISTORICAL REVIEW OF ST. LOUIS. 

In presenting to the public an argument to prove that St. Louis is 
destined to become the great city of the world, it is proper that the dis- 
cussion of a claim so pretentious be introduced b}- a brief historical 
sketch of the foundation, growth and elements of civilization of the city. 

Such a sketch would enable the interested reader to obtain a hmited 
knowledge of the founding and growth of St. Louis, from the first rude 
settlement by French pioneers, made on the primitive shore of the Mis- 
sissippi, when wild beasts and savages contested the empire over nature, 
on through frontier struggles, financial evolutions and constantly accu- 
mulating wealth, to the city of civilization that she now is. 

If it be true — as I hope to establish by the plainest and most incontro- 
vertible facts and arguments — that St. Louis is destined to be the great 
city of the world — the all-directing head and central moving heart of the 
accumulated civilization of the great family of man, the facts of her his- 
tory will, in time, be sought for by citizens and writers, with an eager- 
ness and a zeal never before called out by the special interests of any 
other city — not even of Jerusalem, nor of Rome. 

The facts and circumstances which foreshadow the destiny of St. 
Louis — a destiny so important — will not only be of vast moment to the 
people of the Mississippi Valley, but of this nation, and even interesting 
to the world. 



6 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

The biography of cities destined to become great, Hke that of indi- 
viduals born to a life of distinction, are always found to be full of in- 
teresting incidents foreshadowing their fame and greatness. The life of 
the one is analogous to the life of the other. And if the exile or the re- 
fugee from one land becomes the hero and benefactor of another, the city 
founded in the wilderness by the pioneer and the missionary, far away 
from their native homes, may be also born to greatness. The eventful 
experience of the one finds a parallel in the history of the other ; there- 
fore, if the curiosity of the mind is excited, and the understanding 
delighted by reading the biography of the great man, it will, with equal 
interest, peruse the biography of the great city ; hence the propriety of 
narrating the historic career of St. Louis, and especially when the evi- 
■ dence, as will hereafter be presented, is so overwhelmingly in favor of 
her future greatness and power. 

The spirit of modern civilization is different in its operation and char- 
acter from the social forces of by-gone eras. It is more catholic in its 
objects, more active and concentrated in its energy, and has wonderfully 
abridged the time formerly necessary for historical events to work out 
their accomplishment. Under the singular velocity it has imparted, the 
scenes and changes of the human drama are enacted so swiftly that the 
prophecy of to-day, is either authenticated or disproven by the develop- 
ments of to-morrow. It is this fact which gives us confidence to pro- 
claim the destiny of St. Louis as represented in this book. Already the 
currents of our civic and political progress are shaping towards its de- 
velopment, and it will not require many years to make it more clearly 
evident. There are many who now believe in the future of St. Louis as 
the leading city of the continent and the capital of the United States, 
who two years ago looked with incredulity upon such prognostications, 
and regarded them as mere dreams of ardent minds. The agitation of 
the question has also spread abroad the fame of our stately and expand- 
ing city, and a conviction of the glorious future before her is growing 
rapidly, not only among our own citizens, but among those disconnected 
in every way with our municipal interests. 

Believing earnestly, as we do, in this future, our object is to foster an 
intelligent anticipation of it in the public mind ; and if our volume as- 
sists to accomplish this object, it will not have been written in vain, and 
the time and labor necessary to group and present the facts and argu- 
ment it contains will be amply repaid. 

We, therefore, cannot consider our work as complete without some 
review of the history of St. Louis. The Past often interprets the Fu- 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 7 

ture, and is always interesting in connection with it; and, as an appro- 
priate introduction, we present the following historical review, with which 
is incorporated some valuable and significant statistics, illustrating our 
present social and commercial condition. 

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION OF ST. LOUIS. 

The city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, is situated on the 
west bank of the Mississippi river, in the county of St. Louis, of which 
it is the seat of government. It is in 

Deg. Min. Sec. 

Latitude 38 37 37.5 

Longitude v/est from Washington 6 Hrs. o 45-29 

" The site of St. Louis is both commanding and beautiful ; high with- 
out being precipitous, and gently undulating, affording easy drainage, 
and sufficiently level, without being flat, to extend every advantage for 
building and beautifying purposes. 

The plane of the levee, or Front street, is thirty-two feet above low 
water mark. From thence to Fourth street, is a rise fifty-nine feet to 
the first summit, which is a plane occupied by Fourth, Fifth and in part 
by Sixth streets. From thence in going west, and taking the center of 
the city for observation, the ground gently declines to Thirteenth, when 
we again commence a gradual ascent to Seventeenth street, where, at 
the intersection of Olive street, we are ninety feet above the levee. 
Be3^ond the city limits the same general characteristics of country are 
maintained, except that for a distance of some three or four miles 
beyond, it does not attain to the same elevation as Grand avenue ; but 
the wave-like character is still preserved, and filled, as it all is, with 
gardens and orchards, it constitutes such a view as is excelled by few 
of our cities. 

POLITICAL CONDITION OF NORTH AMERICA PRIOR TO THE FOUNDING OF 

ST. LOUIS. 

The 15th of February, 1764, may be accepted as the exact date of 
the first settlement on the site of St. Louis, and the name of Pierre 
Ligueste Laclede may justly appear in history as the founder of the 
city.* It is difiicult to realize that scarce a century has elapsed since 



* Notwithstanding the apparently concUisive reasons for believing that the true family name of the fouuder of 
St. Louis was Ligueste rather than Laclede, we have adopted the latter in this sketch as the more popular and 
familiar to the majority of readers. 



8 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

the solitude and silence of the forest primeval reigned over a scene now 
covered with the countless buildings of a stately city, pulsating with the 
life of busy thousands. There is, however, no doubt as to the date given, 
as it is a matter, if not of official record, yet so authenticated by col- 
lateral circumstances, as to eliminate ever}^ uncertainty. At the time of 
the event, the political condition (if we may so speak of a vast territory 
for the most part terra incognita^ of the North American continent was 
somewhat confused as to the ownership and boundary. England, France 
and Spain held nominal possession of vast regions, but with so little cer- 
tainty of title or jurisdiction that their rival claims would probably have 
remained an endless source of dispute and conflict had they not been in 
a measure decided by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. This 
treaty, however, embraced no adjustment of boundaries, which was 
practically impossible at the time, but provided for the restitution of 
conquests made from each other by the powers named, and, not many 
years after, it was followed by war between France and England. The 
leading cause of the conflict was the action of the former power in 
establishing a line of military posts along the lakes, and the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers, for the purpose of connecting her Canadian posses- 
sions with the country bordering the Mississippi river southwardly, over 
which she also claimed jurisdiction. The bitter and sanguinary hostili- 
ties which ensued were terminated by the treaty of Paris, consummated 
on the 1 6th of February, 1763, and which closed the celebrated seven 
years' war on the European continent. The result of this treaty practi- 
cally left to England and Spain the possession of North America. The 
former retained the Atlantic seaboard colonies, and acquired the Can- 
adas and Louisiana, lying east of the Mississippi, except the town of 
New Orleans and its territory. She also obtained the Floridas from 
Spain, by restoring to that power Havana and the greater part of the 
island of Cuba. By a secret treaty of the same date France ceded the 
country west of the Mississippi, and known by the general designation 
of Louisiana, to Spain, but of this illimitable territory little, if anything, 
was then definitely known. 

When we remember the tardy means of communication, at this period, 
between the Old and New Worlds, it is easy to understand the delay 
and difficulty in giving any practical eflect to the terms of this treaty. 
It does not appear that Spain exercised any general jurisdiction over the 
territory acquired until the year 1786, although in the spring of 1764, 
D'Abadie, the Spanish Governor-General, was instructed to formally 
promulgate the transfer made under the treaty. The immense territory 



\ 
OF SAINT LOUIS. 



of Louisiana, the upper portion of which bore the name of "The 
IlHnois," consequently remained under French laws and jurisdiction 
throughout its scant and widely separated settlements until 1768. The 
English were more prompt in claiming actual control of the territory 
ceded by the treaty of 1763, and vigorous measures were taken in various 
directions to obhterate the evidence of French domination. In the 
vicinity of St. Louis, east of the Mississippi, Fort de Chartres, one of 
the mihtary posts established by France along the line of her frontier, 
was surrendered to Captain SterHng, of the English army, in 1765, 
under the treaty of Paris. This fort was situated in the American Bot- 
tom, a short distance above Kaskakia, and the French commander, at 
the time of the surrender, St. Ange de Bellerive, removed with his 
troops to the west side of the Mississippi, on the 17th of July, 1765, to 
the settlement on the site of the present city of St. Louis, which had 
been made about seventeen months before. Without going into the 
details of English and Spanish occupancy, we will proceed to the history 
of St. Louis proper. 

THE LACLEDE EXPEDITION ITS OBJECT AND CHARACTER. 

Pierre Ligueste Laclede has left but faint traces in history prior to 
the time when his name becomes identified with the founding of St- 
Louis. He was born in one of the French provinces bordering on the 
Pyrenees, and appears to have emigrated to Southern Louisiana with the 
design of trading with the Indians, bringing with him credentials from 
the Court of France that secured him the consideration of the authorities. 
The New World then offered an exxiting field for adventurous minds, 
and many young men crossed the Atlantic to its shores, impelled either 
by thirst for gold, which at one time created the dream of an El Dorado 
beyond the Western Ocean, or the desire to explore the vast continent 
whose mighty natural features astonished Europe. It is probable Lac- 
lede was in part actuated by both these motives, but he was neither a 
mere gold-hunter, nor a reckless adventurer. Although little is known 
of his history, except during the period embraced between the years 
1763, the year before the founding of St. Louis, and 1778, the year of 
his death, we can clearly gather the prominent traits of his character. 
He was brave, self-reliant, and resolute, and his idea of fortune-making 
in the New World was based on the sober expectation that there was 
ample opportunity for energy and enterprise in developing the trade in 
peltries and other articles with the native tribes that roamed over the 



lO HISTORIC ALSKETCH 

1 boundless country of forest and prairie. How long he remained at New 

Orleans, prior to engaging in his famous expedition northward, is not 
ascertainable, but it appears probable that he was there for a consider- 
able time. 

In 1762 D'Abadie, Governor-General, granted to Laclede, in connec- 
tion with other associates, a charter under the name of "The Louisiana 
Fur Company," which conferred the exclusive privilege of trading 
"with the Indians of the Missouri, and those west of the Mississippi 
above the Missouri, as far north as the River St. Peters." Antoine 
Maxent and others were interested equally with Laclede in the franchises 
granted, but he appears to have been the active and leading spirit of the 
association. Before entering upon some account of the first expedition 
organized under the auspices of this chartered company, and which 
resulted in the founding of St. Louis, it is necessary to glance at the 
progress made at that time in the settlement and exploration of Upper 
Louisiana. 

The town, or city, of New Orleans was the capital of the Louisianas, 
being in fact the only place of any size or importance in the valley of 
the Mississippi. The immense territory on either side of the great river 
northward was very imperfectly known, for, although partially explored 
by Marquette, Hennepin, La Salle, Cartier and others, but little accurate 
information had been gained as to its topography and inhabitants. The 
great valley, the destiny of which, as the centre of our nation's wealth 
and prosperity, is now so rapidly developing, was then in its primitive 
condition, with the exception of a few scattered settlements whose 
people struggled for an existence amid the unfriendly influences of a 
trying climate and an unsubdued wilderness. Above New Orleans there 
was a settlement of some consequence in the vicinity of the present city 
of Natchez, but from that point to Ste. Genevieve there were but few 
traces of human occupation. On the eastern side of the Mississippi, a 
few settlements had been formed at Fort de Chartres and vicinity, St. 
Phillips, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and some other points, but they were 
comparatively insignificant, and had sprung up under the fostering in- 
fluences of French military protection. The trade in lead, oils and 
peltries had concentrated at Ste. Genevieve, then a post of some import- 
ance, with several small settlements in its vicinity, and which bore the 
name of Le Poste de Ste. Genevieve. The settlers at the places named 
were nearly all of that adventurous type of character usually to be found 
among the pioneers of civilization in a wild continent peopled only by 
barbaric and nomadic tribes. They included, however, many persons 



OF SAINT LOUIS. II 

of refinement and education who had come from France and Spain to 
seek their fortunes in the New World, and were, as a body of men, 
consequently different from the more reckless and uncouth pioneers of a 
later date who pushed westward the boundaries of the Union againt 
the ineffectual struggles of the Indian tribes. 

The only inducement at this period for any persons to penetrate 
Occidental Louisiana, or "The Illinois," was the prospect of trade in 
furs and minerals, or the love of exploration and adventure, and it is 
only the daring and resolute who are willing to embark in such pursuits ; 
but notwithstanding this, these pioneers appear to have managed the 
fierce aborigines with more discretion than their successors, who inaug- 
urated an unextinguishable war. 

Such was the condition of the Mississippi Valley, as to settlement, at 
the period indicated. The nile of the red man had been impinged upon 
but not broken, and the active and aggressive foreigners had as yet 
wrought little change upon the face of nature. Notwithstanding the 
time that had elapsed since De Soto discovered the Mississippi to the 
South, and Marquette and Joliet to the North, the explorations of the 
river and its tributaries, and the region through which it flowed, had 
not been of an active, or exhaustive, character, and the development 
even of the fur trade was insignificant. Beyond the mouth of the Mis- 
souri, the white man had made little or no progress, and whatever trade 
was carried on between New Orleans and the country north of the 
mouth of the Ohio, originated south of the present site of St. Louis. 

THE FOUNDING OF ST. LOUIS. 

In the summer of 1763, an expedition was organized in New Orleans 
for the purpose of carrying into operation the powers conferred in the 
charter granted by Governor D'Abadie to Laclede and his associates. 
The immediate object in views was the establishing of a permanent 
trading-post and settlement on some advantageous place north of the 
settlements then existing. Laclede was the prominent personage in 
organizing the expedition, and it left New Orleans under his command 
on the 3d day of August, 1763. It is impossible to procure accurate 
information respecting the size and character of the party participating 
in the expedition, but it was probably not very numerous, and was 
composed mainly of hunters and trappers accustomed to the hardships 
and dangers of such enterprises. The means of transportation were the 
strong, heavily-fashioned boats then in use, in which was stored a large 



12 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

quantity of such merchandise as was necessary for trade with the 
Indians. 

The voyage on the Mississippi was a tedious one, and three months 
after the departure from New Orleans, or on the 3d of October, the 
expedition reached Ste. Genevieve. This town, which was founded 
about 1775, and is perhaps the oldest settlement in Missouri, was then a 
place of some consequence, and the only French post on the west bank 
of the river. The intention of Laclede was to seek a place further 
north, and after a short stop at Ste. Genevieve, the party continued their 
course, their destination now being Fort de Chartres, to which place 
Laclede had an invitation from the military commander, and where he 
determined to rest and store his goods while exploring the country for a 
suitable location for the proposed trading post. At the time of the 
arrival of the expedition, the fort was commanded by M. de Noyon de 
Villiers, who, although of a haughty disposition, appears to have wel- 
comed the party with kindness and hospitality. The energetic spirit of 
Laclede did not permit him to remain inactive for any length of time, 
while the object of the expedition was unaccomplished, and a few weeks 
after his arrival at Fort de Chartres, he started with a portion of the 
party towards the mouth of the Missouri. Among those who accom- 
panied him were two brothers, Pierre and Auguste Choteau, whose 
family name is thoroughly identified with the history of St. Louis. The 
prospecting party started in the beginning of February, 1764, and they 
went as far as the mouth of the Missouri, but without fixing upon a site 
for the post. On their return along the western shore, Laclede landed 
at the sweeping curve of the river on which now stands the city of St. 
Louis, and impressed by its pleasant aspect of woodland and prairie 
swelling westward from the river, he determined to establish here the 
settlement and post he desired. This memorable event occurred on the 
15th of February 1764, and Laclede, having selected the site, immedi- 
ately proceeded to clear away trees and mark out the lines of a town, 
which he named St. Louis in honor of Louis XV. of France, evidently 
ignorant at the time that this monarch had transferred to Spain the 
whole country west of the Mississippi. 

When Laclede and his men selected their trading station, the marvels 
of its future development were undreamed of. Around them lay a 
limitless and untrodden wilderness, peopled only by tribes of savage and 
unfriendly Indians, and in which subsistence could be obtained only by 
the chase. It is only when we thus contemplate our ancestors struggling 
with unconquerable energy and daring, amid innumerable dangers and 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 1 3 

hardships, that we properly estimate their worth and character. It is 
then that we reahze that the natural advantages of the location chosen, 
formed but one element in the colossal result of their work. The 
others are to be found in those motives and heroic qualities which give 
stability and nobleness to human actions. It is pleasant and inspiring to 
see in the historical perspective of our city examples of frugality, forti- 
tude and self-reliance, for these are the only foundations upon which 
the prosperit}' of any community can be immovably erected. 

SUCCEEDING HISTORICAL EVENTS. 

Laclede's part}" had been increased somewhat in numbers by volun- 
teers from Ste. Genevieve, Fort de Chartres and Cahokia, then colled 
"Notre Dame des Kahokias," but still, numerically, it was but a small 
band, and could have made no sustained resistance to Indians had they 
disputed their right to settlement. It does not appear, however, that 
the pioneers encountered any hostility from the natives. Not long after 
their arrival a large body of Missouri Indians visited the vicinity, but 
without unfriendly intent. They did not belong to the more warlike 
tribes, and, being in an impoverished condition, all they wanted was 
provisions and other necessaries. The settlers were in no condition to 
support their visitors, but, as they were equally unprepared to provoke 
their hostility, their arrival caused no small uneasiness, and, it is said, a 
few of Laclede's party apprehending trouble, re-crossed the river and 
returned to Fort de Chartres, or Cahokia. By judicious management, 
and by announcing the anticipated arrival of French troops from the 
fort, Laclede finally succeeded in inducing the Indians to depart, very 
much to the satisfaction of his people. After some progress had been 
made in the actual establishmei.'. of a settlement, Laclede returned to 
Fort de Chartres to make arrangements for the removal to St. Louis of 
the goods left there, as it was expected that the fort would soon be sur- 
rendered to the English. During the ensuing year this event took place, 
as before stated, and Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, the French com- 
mander, removed, with his officers and troops, numbering about fifty 
men to St. Louis, on the 17th of July, 1765 ; and from this date the new 
settlement was considered the capital of Upper Louisiana. At this time 
M. Aubrey was Commandant-General at New Orleans, M. D'Abadie 
having died during the preceding year, as stated in Marbois' History of 
Louisiana, from the effects of grief caused by the transfer of the French 
possessions to Spain. 



14 HISTORICAI. SKETCH 

St. Ange, on arriving at St. Louis, at once assumed supreme control 
of affairs, contrary to the treaty of Paris. There was indeed no person 
who could have conferred upon him this authority, but there was none 
to dispute it. Nearly all of the settlers of St. Louis and other posts in 
the valley of the Mississippi were of French nationality, or accustomed to 
the rule of France. In Low^er Louisiana the promulgation of the terms 
of the treaty was received with intense dissatisfaction, which was also the 
case at St. Louis when the intelligence was subsequently announced there. 
The authority of Spain could not at this time be practically enforced, and 
the inhabitants of St. Louis not only submitted to the authority of St. 
Ange, but appeared to have welcomed his arrival with satisfaction. He 
proved a mild and politic Governor, fostering the growth and develop- 
ment of the new settlement and ingratiating himself with the people. 
He maintained friendly relations with the Indians, and was instrumental 
in inducing Pontiac, the famous chief of the Ottawas, to abandon his 
fierce crusade against the English. Between Laclede and St. Ange the 
most friendly relations existed. An important act of the latter was the 
formal issuing of land grants to citizens of St. Louis, the recording of 
which in the " Livre Terrien" confirmed titles to land granted them by 
the former, and formed the basis of a simple land system. 

ST. LOUIS IN EARLY DAYS. 

The extent of the town in its early da3^s, if it did not form some faint 
prophecy of future development, still clearly proves that more than a 
mere trading post was intended by the founders. The principal street 
(La Rue Principale) ran along the line of Main street of to-day, extend- 
ing from about Almond to Morgan street. The next west was about the 
same length, and corresponded to the present Second street, and, after 
the erection of a church in the vicinity of the present Catholic Cathe- 
dral, received the name of Church street (La Rue de I'Eglise.) The 
next street, now Third, was originally known as Barn street, from the 
number of buildings on it of the character indicated. In mentioning 
these streets, however, we speak of a time many years subsequent to 
the arrival of Laclede. Before the topographical features of the pres- 
ent site of our city were altered by the course of improvements, they 
were materially different from the present. Most of our citizens will 
find it hard to realize that originally a rocky bluffs extended, on the river 
front, from about Walnut to Vine street, with a precipitous descent in 
many places. As building progressed this bluff' was cut away, and the 



OF SAINT I.OUIS. 15 

appearance of a sharp, but tolerably even, incline to the river from Main 
street was gained. At the corner of Commercial alley and Chestnut 
street, and 'at several other places, there are at present palpable evi- 
dences of this rocky ridge, portions of it yet remaining. At first, it is 
probable, the Laclede settlement bore the appearance of a rude and 
scattered hamlet in the wilderness, and it required the growth of several 
years before the semblance of streets was formed by even imperfect 
lines of buildings of the most primitive character. Immediately west of 
the bluft' mentioned was a nearly level strip of land protected by gentle 
elevations westward, and here was the site of the Laclede settlement. 
The river front was covered with a growth of timber, in the rear of 
which was a large and gently rolling prairie, with scattered groves of 
heavy forest trees, which received the title of "La Grande Prairie," 
and it is not difficult to believe that if the selection of the spot was not 
made because of its adaptability as the site of a great cit3% it was because 
of its natural pleasantness and beauty. 

THE YEARS OF SPANISH CONTROL. 

In 1766, an effort was made by Spain to assume control of the territory 
ceded to her b}^ the treaty of Paris, and General Don Antonio D'Ulloa 
arrived at New Orleans, with Spanish troops, but, owing to the hostile 
feeling of the inhabitants, he finally departed without attempting to 
exercise the powers of Governor. The rule of France was maintained 
in Lower Louisiana until the arrival of Count O'Reilly in 1769, who 
took possession of the Territory and New Orleans, obliterating forcibly 
French supremacy, and strengthening his authority by severe measures 
towards the more active adherents of France. 

The scattered settlements of Upper Louisiana, although equally 
opposed to Spanish authority, had no adequate means of resistance ; 
and when Rios, a Spanish officer, arrived at St. Louis, with a small 
body of troops, on the nth of August, 1768, he only encountered a 
passive hostility. He took possession of the country in the name of his 
Catholic Majesty, but does not appear to have exercised any civil 
authority, as the archives show that St. Ange acted as Governor until 
the beginning of 1770. On the 17th of July, 1769, Rios and his troops 
departed and returned to New Orleans to co-operate with Count 
O'Reilly in enforcing Spanish authority in the lower Province. 

During the same year Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, arrived at St. Louis 
for the purpose of visiting his former friend, St. Ange de Bellerive, by 



l6 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

whom he was cordially received. The visit was fatal to the Indian 
warrior, for, while on an excursion to the English territory on the other 
side of the river, he was killed by a Kaskaskia Indian. 

In the latter part of 1770, Count O'Reilly, having acquired full con- 
trol of Lower Louisiana, determined to bring the upper province into 
equal subjection. He appointed Don Pedro Piernas as Lieutenant- 
Governor and Military Commandant of the province, and dispatched 
him with troops to St. Louis, where he arrived on November 29th of 
the same year. He did not enter on the exercise of executive functions 
until the beginning of the following 3^ear, but the delay was not occa- 
sioned by any active hostility on the part of the people. From this 
event we may date the commencement of Spanish domination in Upper 
Louisiana. 

The new Governor, fortunately, proved an excellent administrative 
officer ; and as his measures were mild and judicious, he soon concilia- 
ted the people. He made no abrupt changes in the laws, and he 
improved the tenure of property by ordering accurate surveys, and in 
determining the lines of the land grants previously made. Under the 
liberal policy of the Spanish Governor, St. Louis prospered rapidly, 
while immigration constantly added to the population. In 1774, St. 
Ange de Bellerive, who had accepted military service under Piernas, 
died, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery with every mark of public 
esteem and respect. In his will he commended his soul "to God, the 
blessed Virgin, and the Saints of the Celestial Court," and appointed 
Laclede his executor. 

Emigration from the Canadas and the lower Province increased rap- 
idly under the benignant policy of Spain, and settlements sprang up at 
different points along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, some of which, 
however, date from a few years earlier. In 1767, Carondelet was 
founded by Delor de Tregette, and appears at first to have been known 
as Louisburgh, and at a different period as Vide Pochc, but finally 
received its present name in honor of the Baron de Carondelet. In 
1769 Les Petites Cotes, subsequently St. Andrews, and now St. Charles, 
was founded by Blanchette Chasseur. The first settlement at Florissant, 
afterwards called St. Ferdinand, was made by Beaurosier Dunegant in 
1776; and so the career of growth and prosperity was inaugurated in 
this portion of the Mississippi Valley. 

The successor of Piernas was Don Francisco Cruzat, who assumed 
office in 1775, and was succeeded by Don Fernando de Leyba in 1778. 
It was durinir the administration of the latter that the death of Laclede 



OF SAINT I.OUIS. 17 

took place, while on his way to New Orleans, at the age of fifty-four. 
He was buried near the mouth of the Arkansas river, June 20, 1778, 
amid the wild solitude of a region in which he had acted as the pioneer 
of civilization. 

The war which was now raging between Great Britain and her Amer- 
ican colonies could hardly be unfelt on the far western shores of the 
Mississippi. Many of the inhabitants of St. Louis, and other places on 
the same side of the river, were persons who had changed their resi- 
dence from the opposite shore when it passed under English rule. They 
were influenced by a hereditary hostility to that power ; and although 
enjoying a mild government under Spanish rulers, their independent 
spirit, apart even from their feeling towards England, enlisted their sym- 
pathies in behalf of their colonial brethren in the East, struggling for 
freedom. Their great distance did not secure their prosperity from the 
disastrous influences of war. It was known that Spain sympathized 
with the colonies, and this speedily endangered their security ; for the 
ferocity of many of the Indian tribes was directed against them by the 
English. 

In the early part of 1779, Col. Rogers Clark, under the authority of 
Virginia, visited the settlements of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and other places, 
for the purpose of endeavoring to enlist men for an expedition against 
St. Vincents, now Vincennes, then held by the English under Governor 
Hamilton. 

THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS BY INDIANS. 

About this time, an alarming rumor became prevalent that an attack on 
St. Louis was being organized under British influence. Actuated by a 
spirit of generous chivalry, Clark offered the assistance of himself and 
men to Lieut. Gov. Leyba for the protection of the town, but his offer 
was declined on the ground that the danger was not imminent. (There 
seems to be some uncertainty as to this incident, but it is supported by 
the excellent authorit}^ of Judge Wilson Primm, and is corroborated by 
Stoddard in his historical sketch of Louisiana.) Whatever was the 
ground for the fancied security, the sequel proves either that he was an 
execrable traitor, or was shamefully incompetent to meet the exigencies 
of the time. Apprehensions, however, began to disturb the people, and 
the defenseless condition of the town induced them to undertake some 
means of fortification. Although they numbered little more than one 
hundred men, they proceeded to build a wall of logs and earth, about 



l8 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

five or six feet high, inclosing the dwellings of the settlement. It formed 
a semi-circular line, with its ends terminating at the river, and supplied 
with three gates, at each of which a heavy piece of ordnance was 
placed and kept in constant readiness. For some months after this work 
was completed, nothing occurred to indicate an Indian attack. Winter 
passed away, and the inhabitants finally began to consider their appre- 
hensions groundless, which conclusion was assisted by the assurances of 
the Governor that there was no cause for anxiety. In reality, however, 
the long-pending attack was now being secretly organized. Numerous 
bands of Indians, composed of Ojibways, Winnebagos, Sioux, and 
other tribes, with some Canadians, numbering in all nearly 1,500, had 
gathered on the eastern shore of the river, a little above St. Louis, and 
arrangements were consummated for a general attack on the settlement 
on the 26th of May. 

The 25th of May, 1780, was the festival of Corpus Christi, which 
was celebrated by the Catholic inhabitants with religious ceremonies and 
rejoicing. There was no feeling of apprehension abroad just at this 
time, notwithstanding that an event calculated to arouse alarm had oc- 
curred but a few days before. An old citizen named Quenelle had 
crossed the river to Cahokia creek, on a fishing excursion. While watch- 
ing his lines he was startled to see on the opposite shore of the creek, a 
man named Ducharme, who had formerly lived in St. Louis, and who had 
fled to escape punishment for some crime committed. He endeavored 
to induce Quenelle to come over to him, but the latter thought he de- 
tected the presence of Indians in the bushes opposite, and refused, 
returning hastily in his canoe to the town, where he reported what had 
occurred. The Commandant ridiculed his story, and it did not create 
any general fear among the inhabitants. Corpus Christi was celebrated 
with unusual animation, and a large number of the citizens left the in- 
closure of the town and were scattered about the prairie — men, women 
and children — gathering strawberries. A portion of the Indians crossed 
the river on the same day, but fortunately did not make the attack, 
owing, probably, to their not knowing how many of the men had remained 
in the town. Had they done so, the result would surely have been fatal 
to the young settlement. On the following day, the whole body of the 
attacking force crossed, directing their course to the fields over which 
they had seen the inhabitants scattered the day before. It fortunately 
hapened that only a few of them were outside the town,, and these, see- 
ing the approach of the Indians, hastily retreated towards the upper 
gate, which course led them nearly through a portion of the hostile 



OF SAINT LOUIS. I9 

force. Rapid volleys were fired at the fleeing citizens, and the reports 
speedily spread the alarm in the town. Arms were hastily seized, and 
the men rushed bravely towards the wall, opening the gate to their de- 
fenseless comrades. There was a body of militia in the town from Ste. 
Genevieve, which had been sent up, under the command of Silvia Fran- 
cisco Cartabona, some time before, when apprehensions of an attack 
prevailed. This company, however, behaved shamefully, and did not 
participate in the defense, many of them concealing themselves in the 
houses while the fight was in progress. The Indians approached the 
line of defense rapidly, and when at a short distance, opened an irregu- 
lar fire, to which the inhabitants responded with light arms and dis- 
charges of grape-shot from their pieces of artillery. The resistance 
made was energetic and resolute, and the savage assailants, seeing the 
strength of the fortifications and dismayed by the artillery, to which 
they were unaccustomed, finally retired, and the fight came to a close. 

Commander Leyba appeared upon the scene at this juncture, having 
been startled from a carouse to some idea of the situation by the sound of 
the artillery. His conduct was extraordinary ; he immediately ordered 
several pieces of ordnance, which had been placed near the Government 
house, to be spiked, and was then, as it is chronicled, rolled to the im- 
mediate scene of action "in a wheelbarrow." He ordered the inhabit- 
ants to cease firing and return to their houses. Those stationed near the 
lower gate, not hearing the command, paid no attention to it, and he di- 
rected a cannon to be fired at them. This barbarous order was carried 
out, and the citizens only escaped the volley of grape by throwing them- 
selves on the ground, and the shot struck down a portion of the wall. 
The unparalleled treachery of the commandant was fortunately exhibited 
too late to be of assistance to the Indians, who had been beaten back by 
the determined valor of the settlers, and the attack was not renewed. 
When they had left the vicinity, search was made for the bodies of the 
citizens who had been killed on the prairie, and between twenty and 
thirty lives were ascertained to have been lost. Several old men, women 
and children were among the victims, and all the bodies had been hor- 
ribly mutilated by their murderers. 

The traitorous conduct of the commandant, which so nearly imperiled 
the existence of the town, had been obvious to the people generally ; and, 
justly indignant at his cruel rascality, means were at once taken to trans- 
mit a full report of his proceedings to Galvez, the Governor of Lower 
Louisiana. This resulted in the prompt removal of Leyba, and the set- 
tlement was again placed under the authority of Cruzat. Leyba died the 



20 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

same 3'ear, from the effects, it is said, of poison administered by his own 
hand — universal obloquy and reproach having rendered his life unendur- 
able. He was buried in the village church, "in front of the right-hand 
balustrade, having received all the sacraments of our mother the Holy 
Church,'' as is set forth in the burial certificate of Father Bernard, a 
"Catholic Priest, Apostolic Missionary Curate of St. Louis, country of 
Illinois, Province of Louisiana, Bishopric of Cuba." The year 1780, 
rendered so memorable by this Indian attack, was afterwards known as 
'■'' L' annce du grand coup,'"' or "year of the great blow." 

There is no doubt but that this assault on St. Louis had for its object 
the destruction of the settlement, and was onl}^ frustrated by ^the gal- 
lantry of the people ; that it was partially instigated by English influence 
is almost unquestionable. The Indians accepted their defeat, and 
departed without attempting any other demonstration. It is said their 
retreat was occasioned by the appearance of Col. George Rogers Clark 
with four or five hundred Americans from Kaskaskia, but this is not sub- 
stantiated. Pending the arrival of Cruzat, Cartabona, before mentioned, 
exercised the functions of Lieutenant-Governor, but, however, for only 
a short period. One of the first works undertaken by Cruzat was the 
strengthening of the fortifications. He established half a dozen or more 
stone forts, nearly circular in shape, about fifty feet in diameter and 
twenty feet high, connected by a stout stockade of posts. The fortifica- 
tions, as extended and improved by Cruzat, were quite pretentious for so 
small a settlement. On the river bank, near the spot formerly occupied 
by the Floating Docks, was a stone tower called the "Half Moon," 
from its shape, and westwardly of it, near the present intersection of 
Broadway and Cherry street, was erected a square building called " The 
Bastion ;" south of this, on the line of OHve street, a circular stone fort 
was situated. A similar building was built on Walnut street, intended 
for service both as a fort and prison. There was also a fort near Mill 
Creek ; and, east of this, another circular fort near the river. The 
strong stockade of cedar posts connecting these forts was pierced with 
loop-holes for small arms. The well-devised line of defenses was not 
subjected to the test of another Indian attack, for although during the 
continuance of the Revolutionary war other settlements on the Missis- 
sippi and Missouri rivers had to contend against the savages, St. Louis 
was not again molested. 

From this period the progress of St. Louis was slow, but satisfactory, 
under the liberal and judicious policy of the Spanish governors, and it 
will be sufiicient to note only the more important events. 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 21 



EARLY NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

It is difficult to realize, in these days, the perils and delays incident to 
the early navigation of the Mississippi. It is to us now the unobstructed 
and natural highway of commerce and travel, connecdng the West and 
far North with the warm and fruitful South, and bearing to the ocean 
the various products of rich and populous regions. A hundred years 
ago it was no less majesdc in its strength and beauty, but its ministra- 
dons to the needs of civilized humanity had hardly begun ; it rolled its 
splendid flood through a wild and solitary wilderness, and the sounds of 
the winds in the forest mingled w^ith the monotone of flowing waters in a 
murmurous rythm, that sunk or swelled only with the fluctuations of 
nature. There were no towns along its banks, no rushing steamboats on 
its surface ; only Indian canoes formed a rare and transitor}^ feature in 
its landscapes, and few human sounds besides the shouts of savac-e 
voices were heard. With the birth of white setdements in the great Val- 
ley, the solitude of the Father of Waters was gradually invaded. In their 
rude craft the early voyageurs had to struggle hard against the swift cur- 
rent, and a voyage from New Orleans to St. Louis was then a thing of 
months, not of da3^s, and required nearly as much preparation as one 
across the Atlantic. During Cruzat's second administration, navigation 
was much impeded and disturbed by piradcal bands which harbored at 
certain points on the wooded shores, and instituted a system of depre- 
dations on settlers or others passing up and down the river. These 
bands were principally controlled by two men, named Culbert and Ma- 
gilbray, who had a permanent rendezvous at a place called Cottonwood 
Creek. The usual programme of the pirates was to attack the vessels 
of voyageurs at some place where a surprise could be readily eflected, 
and, having compelled the affrighted crews to seek safety on shore or by 
surrender, they would plunder the boats and the persons of prisoners of 
all valuables. The vicinity of Grand Tower, a lofty rock situated about 
half way between St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio, became a dreaded 
spot, also, through the deeds of these river marauders, and many tales 
exist in the memories of old citizens of acts of violence perpetrated near 
these places. 

Early in the year 1787, an event occurred which inaugurated severe 
measures by the Government against the pirates, resulting in their dis- 
persion. M. Beausoleil, a New Orleans merchant, started from New 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Orleans for St. Louis with a barge richly freighted with merchandise. 
A strong breeze prevailed as this vessel was approaching Cotton Wood 
Creek. The pirates were in waiting to make an attack, but were frus- 
trated by the swift progress of the vessel, and they despatched a body 
of men up the river for the purpose of heading oft' the expected prize. 
The point chosen for the attack was an island, since called Beausoleil's 
Island, and was reached in about two days. The barge had put ashore 
and was easily captured and the crew disarmed, when the captors turned 
her course down the river. On the way down an unexpected dehver- 
erance was effected through the daring of a negro named Casotte, who, 
by pretending joy at the capture of the vessel, was left free and 
employed as a cook. He maintained a secret understanding with Beau- 
soHel and some of his men, and at a given signal the party effected a 
sudden rising. They defeated the pirates after a brief stmggle, who 
were all either killed or captured. Beausoleil deemed it prudent, after 
this alarming experience, to return to New Orleans, and, in passing Cot- 
ton Wood Creek, kept as near the opposite shore as possible. On reach- 
ing New Orleans, a full report of the doings of the pirates and the 
capture and deliverance of the barge was made public, and convinced 
the authorities and the people that strong measures were absolutely 
necessary to terminate these perils to life and property on the river. 
The Governor issued an order that all boats bound for St. Louis the 
following spring should make the voyage together, thus insuring mutual 
protection. This was carried out, and a little fleet of ten boats started 
up the river. On approaching Cotton Wood Creek some of the men in 
the foremost boat perceived some persons on shore near the mouth of 
the creek. A consultation was held with the crews and passengers of 
the other boats, and it was determined that while a sufficient number of 
men should remain to protect the boats, the remainder would form a 
party to attack the robbers in their haunt. On reaching the place the 
courageous voyageurs found that their enemies had disappeared, but 
four boats were discovered in a bend of the creek, laden with a miscel- 
laneous assortment of valuable plunder, and in a low hut situated among 
the trees at a little distance from the bank, a large quantity of provisions 
and ammunition was found, with cases of guns and various other 
weapons, indicating the numerous captures which had been made by 
these outlaws. All of this property was removed, together with the 
boats and contents, and carried to St. Louis, where large numbers of 
the articles were identified by the owners. 

The arrival of the fleet of barges created quite a commotion in the 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 23 

settlement, and was considered so memorable, that the year 1788 received 
the name of '-'■ U annee des Dix Bateaux, ^^ or "the year of the ten 
boats." A most fortunate result of this descent was that, although no 
blood was shed, it practically led to the dispersion of the bands, and 
but few subsequent depredations are reported to have occurred. 

Prior to the event just narrated, and in the year 1785, the people of 
St. Louis experienced a serious alarm, and loss of property, owing to a 
sudden and extraordinar}- rise in the Mississippi river. The American 
Bottom was covered with water, and Cahokia and Kaskaskia were 
threatened with being swept out of existence. Most of the buildings in 
St. Louis were situated on Main street, and the rise of the waters above 
the steep banks spread general dismay. The flood subsided, however, 
nearly as rapidly as it had risen, averting the necessity of abandoning 
the houses, which had been commenced. The year received the name 
of " L'anncc des Grandcs £aux,'" or " the year of the great waters." 
No rise in the river equal to this has occurred since, excepting in 1844 
and 185 1, floods which are remembered by many of our citizens. 

CONCLUDING EVENTS UNDER THE SPANISH DOMINATION. 

In the year 1788, the administration of Don Francisco Cruzat termi- 
nated, and Manual Perez became Commandant-General of the West 
Illinois country at the post of St. Louis. At this time the population of. 
this and the neighboring settlements numbered nearly 1,200 persons, 
while that of Ste. Genevieve was about 800. The administration of 
Perez was prosperous, and, like his predecessor, he was generally 
esteemed by the inhabitants. He brought about a settlement of friendly 
Indians in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau, where he gave them a large 
grant of land. They consisted of Shawnees and Delawares, two of the 
most powerful tribes east of the Mississippi river, and the object was to 
oppose through them the Osage Indians, a strong Missouri tribe, who 
were constantly making incursions on the young settlements. This 
scheme is said to have operated satisfactorily. 

In 1793, Perez was succeeded by Zenon Trudeau, who also became 
popular, and instituted various measures for the encouragement of immi- 
gration. In the year 1792, the honey-bee is chronicled to have first 
appeared, following as it were civilization from the East, and its coming 
was hailed with delight. The grave difficulties which had sprung up 
between the American colonies and Spain, respecting territorial boun- 
daries and the navigation of the Mississippi, were adjusted by treaty in 



24 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



October, 1795, but more serious trouble subsequently arose from the 
same cause. 

During the administration of Trudeau, St. Louis and the other settle- 
ments in that portion of the country expanded rapidly. Under the 
influence of the exceedingly favorable terms offered to settlers, and the 
fact that the fear of Indian attacks was greatly diminished, quite a num- 
ber of citizens of the United States left the country east of the Missis- 
sippi, over which English control was now practically broken up, and 
took up their residence in the Spanish dominions. St. Louis improved 
in appearance, and new and neat buildings began to supplant, in many 
places, the rude log huts of earher years. Trade received a new 
impetus, but the clearing of the country in its vicinity and the develop- 
ment of agriculture still made but slow progress. The dealing in peltries 
was the principal business, and, in their effort to expand their exchanges 
with Indian tribes, traders became more energetic and daring in their 
excursions, traveled longer distances into the interior westward, and 
forced their rude boats up the swift Missouri to many points never 
before visited. 

Trudeau closed his official career in 1798, and was succeeded by 
Charles Dehault Delassus de Delusiere, a Frenchman by birth, but who 
had been many years in the service of Spain. The winter of the suc- 
ceeding year was one of extraordinary severity and received the title of 
'■'• U annee du Gi'and Hivcr''^ or "year of the hard winter." The same 
year that Delassus commenced his administration was signalized by the 
arrival of some galleys with Spanish troops under Don Carlos Howard, 
and was called ^'- U annee dcs galeres,'''' or "year of the galleys." This 
Governor caused a census to be taken of Upper Louisiana settlements, 
from which we extract the following, showing the population of the 
places named in the year 1799 : St. Louis, 925 ; Carondelet, 184 ; St. 
Charles, 875 ; St. Ferdinand, 276 ; Marius des Liard, 376 ; Meramec, 
115 ; St. Andrew, 393 ; Ste. Genevieve, 949 ; New Bourbon, 560 ; Cape 
Girardeau, 521 ; New Madrid, 782 ; Little Meadows, 72. Total, 6,028. 
Total number of whites, 4,948 ; free colored, 197 ; slaves, 883. 

It will be seen from these figures that St. Charles then nearly equaled 
St. Louis in population, while Ste. Genevieve exceeded it ; and if any 
then living ever dreamed of one of these settlements becoming the 
centre and seat of Western empire, the prophecy would probably have 
been in favor of the brisk town at the mouth of the Missouri. 

On the 15th of May, 1801, the small-pox broke out in St. Louis, and 
vicinity, with fearful severity. It was a new malady among the healthy 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 25 

settlers, and, as was usual, when particularly impressed by an event, 
they commemorated the 3'ear by a peculiar title, calling it ""U' anncc dc 
la Picottc,'' the "year of the small-pox." About this time the increase 
in immigration created a furore for speculation in land, and some 
immense grants were obtained. 

THE RETROCESSION OF LOUISIANA TO FRANCE AND ITS PURCHASE BY 

THE UNITED STATES. 

On the ist of October, 1800, the treat}^ of Ildefonso was consummated, 
by which Spain, under certain conditions, retroceded to France the ter- 
ritory of Louisiana; and in July, 1802, the Spanish authorities were 
directfid to deliver possession to the French commissioners. This 
event, however, did not take place until the month of December, 1803, 
when M. Laussat, on behalf of France, was placed in control. The 
supremacy of England on the high seas, at this period, practically pre- 
vented France from instituting any possessory acts by transferring troops 
to the newl}' acquired territory, and she wisely resolved to accept the 
offer of the United States, and sell the vast territory to that Government. 
This famous purchase, accomplished during the administration of Presi- 
dent Jefferson, was formally concluded on the 30th of April, 1803 '■> ^"^^ 
in December following, M. Laussat, who had just received control of 
the province from the Spanish authorities, transferred it to the United 
States, represented at New Orleans for that purpose by Governor Clai- 
borne and General Wilkinson, the commissioners appointed. The sum 
of money paid by the United States for the territory acquired was about 
$15,000,000. The agent of France for receiving possession of Upper 
Louisiana from the Spanish authorities was Amos Stoddard, a captain 
of artillery in the service of the United states. He arrived in St. Louis 
in March, 1804, and on the 9th of that month Charles Dehault Delassus, 
the Spanish Commandant, placed him in possession of the territory, and 
on the following day he transferred it to the United States. This 
memorable event created a wide-spread sensation in St. Louis and the 
other young towns in the vicinity. Most of the people were deeply 
attached to the old Government, and although they were in sympathy 
with the vigorous Republic which had sprung into existence in the East, 
and dimly appreciated the promise of its future, yet it was with feelings 
of regret and apprehension that they saw the banner of the new Govern- 
ment unfurled in place of the well known flag of Spain. There were, 
however, many among St, Louis citizens who rejoiced at the transfer, 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

and their anticipations of its prosperous influence on their town were 
speedily realized, for business generally became more animated, while 
the population rapidly increased by an energetic and ingenious class of 
settlers from the East and other points, mostly representatives of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, always the most successful in urging forward the 
prosperity and development of a country. 

The date of this transfer marks an interesting epoch in the growth of 
St. Louis and the Western country. If, as we believe, before the year 
1900 St. Louis will be the leading city of the North American continent, 
her history will form a marvelous chapter in the chronicles of the life 
and development of modern nations. Nearly within the bounds of a 
century a rude settlement in a far inland wilderness will have expanded 
into a mighty metropolis, the rich capital and throbbing heart .of the 
greatest nation in the world, the centre of modern civilization, knowl- 
edge and arts ; a city of vast manufacturing and commercial interests, 
in which every branch of human industry is represented ; a second 
Babylon, on the banks of a river beside which the Euphrates was a 
streamlet ; with iron roadways for the cars of steam branching out in all 
directions, and whose empire extends from the wild billows of the 
Atlantic to the calmer waters of the Pacific, from the cold lakes of the 
North to the w^arm waters of the Mexican Gulf. Here indeed is a his- 
torical picture w^hich words can scarcely depict, which illustrates the 
power of human activities far more wondrously than the colossal, but 
isolated, structures of the people of the olden time. 

ST. LOUIS UNDER THE RULE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

A temporary government for St. Louis and the Upper Louisiana was 
promptly provided by Congress, Captain Stoddard being appointed to 
exercise the functions and prerogatives formerly vested in the Spanish 
Lieutenant-Governor. In the excellent historical sketch of Louisiana 
written by that officer, some interesting particulars are given of St. 
Louis at the time of the transfer to the United States. The town con- 
sisted of about 180 houses, and the population in the district numbered 
about 2,280 whites and about 500 blacks. The total population of 
Upper Louisiana is stated at 9,020 whites and 1,320 blacks. Three- 
fifths of the population of Upper Louisiana were Anglo-Americans. 
According to the same authority, St. Louis then consisted of two long 
streets running parallel to the river, with a number of others intersect- 
ing them at right angles. There were some houses, however, on the 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 27 

line of the present Third street, which was known as '•'•La rue dcs 
Granges ^^'' or the street of barns, as before mentioned. The church 
building, from which Second street then derived its name, was a struc- 
ture of hewn logs, somewhat rude and primitive in appearance. West 
of Fourth street there was little else but woods and commons, and the 
Planters' House now stands upon a portion of the space then used for 
pasturage purposes. There was no post office, nor indeed any need for 
one, as there were no official mails. Government boats ran occasionally 
between New Orleans and St. Louis, but there was no regular commu- 
nication. The principal building was the government house on Main 
street near Walnut. The means of education were of course limited in 
character, and, as peltries and lead continued to be the chief articles of 
export, the cultivation of the land in the vicinity of the town progressed 
but slowly. There is a tradition that St. Louis received the sobriquet 
of Pain Court (short bread), owing to the scarcity of the staff of life 
in the town. Indeed there appears reason to believe that, in a commer- 
cial point of view, Ste. Genevieve at this time was a much more important 
place than St. Louis. 

Captain Stoddard, on assuming control, published a circular address 
to the inhabitants, in which he formally announced that Louisiana had 
been transferred to the possession of the United States, and that the 
plan of a permanent territorial government was under the consideration 
of Congress. He briefly alluded to preceding events as follows: "It 
will not be necessary to advert to the various preliminary arrangements 
which have conspired to place you in your present political situation. 
With these it is presumed you are already acquainted. Suffice it to 
observe that Spain, in 1800 and 1801, retroceded the colony and province 
of Louisiana to France, and that France, in 1803, conveyed the same 
territory to the United States, who are now in the legal and peaceful 
possession of it. These transfers were made with honorable views and 
under such forms and sanctions as are usually practiced among civilized 
nations." The remainder of the address is devoted to an eloquent 
exposition of the new political condition of the people and of the privil- 
eges and benefits of a liberal republican government. 

The fur trade, which had led to the founding of St. Louis, continued 
for many years to be the principal business of the people. Here, as 
elsewhere, the Indian tribes forged the weapons for their own destruc- 
tion. They eagerly sought the opportunity to exchange with the white 
men the fruits of the chase for the articles and commodities of a higher 
civilization. They were the principal agents in developing the fur 



28 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

trade of the North and West, and by so doing hastened the incoming of 
the indomitable race destined to build, over their slaughter and decay, 
the glorious structure of American liberty. These primitive races 
wasted and faded with the birth of a nation, whose mission was to bless 
and metamorphose the New World ; and even had there been no Revo- 
lutionary war to usher in the American Union, there is enough in the 
fate of the aborigines of the country to authenticate the remark of 
Theodore Parker that "all the great charters of humanity have been 
written in blood." 

During the lifteen years ending in 1804, the average annual value of 
the furs collected at St. Louis is stated to have been $203,750. The 
number of buffalo skins was only 850 ; deer, 158,000; beaver, 36,900 
pounds; otter, 8,000; bear, 5,100. A very different state of things 
existed twenty or thirty years later, when beaver was nearly exhausted 
and buffalo skins formed the most important article of trade. The 
commerce consisted principally of that portion of furs that did not lind 
its way directly to Montreal and Quebec through the lakes. 

The supphes of the town, especially of groceries, were brought from 
New Orleans, and the time necessary for a trip was from four to six 
months. The departure of a boat was an important event, and gener- 
ally, many of the inhabitants collected together on the shore to see it off 
and bid good-bye to the friends who might be among the passengers. 
Wm. C. Carr, who arrived about the ist of April, 1804, states that it 
took him twenty-five days to make the trip from Louisville, Ky., by 
river. On the same authority it is stated that there were only two 
American families in the place — those of Calvin Adams and William 
Sullivan. Mr. Carr remained in St. Louis about a month, and then, 
attracted by the great lead trade of Ste. Genevieve, went to that place 
to reside, but returned in about a year, convinced that St. Louis was a 
better location. In the same year. Colonel Rufus Easton, John Scott 
and Edward Hempstead came to reside in the country. Mr. Scott 
settled at Ste. Genevieve ; Mr. Hempstead went to St. Charles, then 
called Petite Cote, w^here he remained for several years, and then came 
to St. Louis ; Mr. Easton remained in St. Louis. 

In 1802, James Pursley, an American, with two companions, started 
on a hunting expedition from St. Louis to the source of the Osage, but 
extended his course westward. After various dangers and adventures, 
he reached the vicinity of Santa Fe, and is said to have been the first 
American who traversed the great plains between the United States and 
New Mexico. 



OF SAINT I. GUIS.- 29 

In 1804 the United States dispatclied Lewis and Clark and Major 
Pike to explore the sources of the Mississippi, the Arkansas, the 
Kansas, and the Platte rivers. Hunters from St. Louis and vicinity 
formed their companions, or preceded them, and were to be found on 
nearly all the rivers east of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Auguste 
Chouteau, about the same time, had outfitted Loisel, who established a 
considerable fort and trading post at Cedar Island, a little above the 
Big Bend of the Mississippi ; so that about the time that St. Louis 
became a town of the United States, the great regions west and north of 
her were being gradually opened to settlement. Forty years had elapsed 
since Laclede had founded the settlement, and yet, compared with the 
development of subsequent times, its growth had not been very rapid. 
It was but a straggling river village with few buildings of any conse- 
quence, and was cut oft' from the world of trade and civilization by its 
great distance from the seaboard and the vast unpeopled country 
surrounding it. The inhabitants were mostly French, and the social 
intercourse was simple and friendly, with but faint traces of class 
distinctions. There was only one resident physician. Dr. Saugrain, 
who lived on Second street, and one baker, Le Clere, who baked for 
the garrison and lived on Main street near Elm. The only American 
tavern was kept by a man named Adams, and this, with two others kept 
by Frenchmen named Yostic and Laudreville, both on Main street near 
Locust, were, we believe, the only establishments of the kind in the 
town. The names of the more prominent merchants and citizens at 
this time, are familiar, at present, to nearly all of our citizens, owing to 
many of the families still being represented, and the fact that their 
names, most appropriately, have been wrought in the nomenclature of 
our streets. Among them we may mention Auguste and Pierre Chou- 
teau, Labadie, Sarpy, Gratiot, Pratte, Tayon, Lecompt, Papin, Cabanne, 
Labaume, Soulard, Hortez, Alvarez, Clamorgan, Debreuil and Manuel 
Lisa. The Chouteaus lived on Main street, and Pierre, whose place 
was near the present intersection of that street with Washington avenue, 
had nearly a whole square encircled by a stone wall, and in which he 
had a fine orchard. Manuel Lisa lived on Second street ; the establish- 
ment of Labadie & Sarpy w\as on Main near Chestnut, and the Debreuils 
had a fine place on Second, between Pine and Chestnut streets. 

On the 26th of March, 1804, by an act of Congress, the Province of 
Louisiana was divided into two parts, the Territory of Orleans and the 
District of Louisiana, the latter including all north of the 33d parallel of 
latitude. The executive power of the Government in the Territory of 



30 - HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Indiana was extended over that of Louisiana, the Governors and Judges 
of the former being authorized to enact laws for the new District. Gen- 
eral William Henry Harrison, then Governor of Indiana, instituted the 
American authorities here under the provisions of this act, his associates 
being, we believe. Judges Griffin, Vanderberg, and Davis. The hrst 
courts of justice were held during the ensuing winter in the old fort near 
Fifth and Walnut streets, and were called Courts of Common Pleas. 
On the 3d of March, 1805, by another act of Congress, the District was 
changed to the Territory of Louisiana, and James Wilkinson was 
appointed Governor, and wdth Judges R. J. Meigs and John B. C. 
Lucas, of the Superior Court, formed the Legislature of the Territory. 
The executive offices were in the old Government building on Main 
street, near Walnut, just south of the Public Square, called La Place 
d' Amies. Here General Wilkinson was visited by Aaron Burr when 
the latter was planning his daring and ambitious conspiracy. When 
Wilkinson was appointed, there was in each of the Districts of St. 
Charles, St. Louis, Ste. Genevieve, and Cape Girardeau a civil and 
military Commandant, as follows : Colonel Meigs for the first. Colonel 
Hammond for St. Louis, Major Seth Hunt lor Ste. Genevieve, and 
Colonel T. B. Scott for the last-named place. These officers were 
superseded by the organization of the courts, and the names of the 
districts subsequently became those of counties. This system of legis- 
lation was maintained for several years, with occasional changes in 
officers. 

In 1806 Gen. Wilkinson established the fort of Belle Fontaine, on the 
south side of the Missouri, a few miles above its mouth ; but it was 
practically abandoned early the following year, when he was ordered 
South to assist in arresdng the Burr conspiracy. During part of 1806, 
Joseph Browne was Secretary of the Territory and Acdng Governor, 
and J. B. C. Lucas and Otho Shrader were Judges. The following 
year Frederic Bates was Governor, with the same Judges in office. 
Next year Merriweather Lewis, with the same Judges, formed the 
Legislature, and continued to do so until 1811. 

On the 9th of November, 1809, ^^^ town of St. Louis was first incor- 
porated, upon the petition of two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants and 
under the authority of an act of the Territory of Louisiana, passed the 
previous year. 

On the 4th of June, 181 2, the country received the name of the Ter- 
ritory of Missouri, and the government was modified and made to consist 
of a Governor and Legislative Assembly, the upper branch of which, 



OF SAINT LOUIS. . 3I 

numbering nine councilors, was selected out of twice that number, nom- 
inated to the Governor by the lower branch. At this time the Territory 
had first conceded to it the right of representation in Congress by one 
delegate. Anterior to this change in the government there are some 
events which deserve particular notice. Shortly after the country 
became part of the United States a postoffice was permanently created 
in the town, the lirst postmaster being Rufus Easton. The first news- 
paper was established July, 1808, by Joseph Charless, and received the 
name of the Missouri Gazette. It was first printed on a sheet of writing- 
paper not much larger than a royal-octavo page. This journal was the 
germ of the present Missouri Republicans one of the largest in circula- 
tion and most influential journals of the country. The necessity of some 
means of transportation to and fro across the river had led to the 
establishment of a small ferry, which was first kept by Calvin Adams, 
and proved a paying enterprise. His ferry consisted of two pirogues 
tied together with planks laid across the top, and his charge for bringing 
over man and horse was $2. In August of this year two Iowa Indians 
were tried for murder before the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Judges 
Lucas and Shrader presiding. It created a good deal of excitement, 
but owing to some want of jurisdiction in the case the prisoners escaped 
the sentence of death which was passed upon them. On the i6th of 
September the first execution for murder in the Territory took place, 
the criminal being a young man who had shot his step-father. In the 
autumn of the next year Governor Lewis, while on a journey to Louis- 
ville, committed suicide by shooting himself while under the influence 
of aberration of mind. 

The Municipal Government, at this time, consisted of a board of 
Trustees, elected under the provisions of the charter mentioned above. 
The Missouri Fur Company was formed in 1808, consisting principally 
of Pierre Chouteau, Manuel Lisa, William Clark, Sylvester Labadie, 
Pierre Menard, and Auguste Pierre Chouteau, the capital being $40,000. 
An expedition was dispatched under the auspices of this company, in 
charge of Major A. Henry, and succeeded in establishing trading posts 
upon the Upper Missouri — one on Lewis River, beyond the Rocky 
Mountains, and one on the southern branch of the Columbia, the latter 
being the first post established on the great river of Oregon Territory. 
In 181 2 this company was dissolved, most of the members establishing 
independent houses in the trade, and for furnishing outfits to private 
adventurers. Among these may be mentioned the houses of Berthold 
& Chouteau, B. Pratte, J. P. Cabanne, and M. Lisa. The hunters and 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

trappers at this time formed a considerable part of the population of St. 
Louis, and were principally half-breed Indians, and white men so long 
accustomed to such pursuits that they were nearly similar in habits to the 
natives. Notwithstanding the preponderance of this reckless element, 
it does not appear that the town was disorderly, and crime and scenes of 
violence were of rare occurrence. 

The first members of the Territorial Legislature, elected in 1812, sat 
during the ensuing winter in the old house of Joseph Robidoux, on the 
northeast corner of Myrtle and Main streets. It was in this year that 
the terrible earthquake occurred at New Madrid and vicinity, and cre- 
ated wide-spread dismay. The waters of the Mississippi were greatly 
agitated by the subterranean convulsion, and several boats with their 
crews were engulfed. New Madrid, which stood upon a bluff fifteen or 
twenty feet above the summer floods, sank so low that the next rise 
covered the ground to the depth of four or five feet. The channel of 
the river was affected materially, and the bottoms of some small lakes 
in the vicinity were so elevated that they became dry land. 

The first English school was opened in St. Louis, in 1808, by a man 
named Ratchford, who was succeeded by Geo. Tompkins, a 3^oung Vir- 
ginian, who, when he started in the enterprise, was nearly without funds, 
and with but few acquaintances. He rented a room on the north side 
of Market street, between Second and Third, for his school, and during 
his leisure hours pursued the stud}^ of law. The first debating society 
known west of the Mississippi was connected with this school, and the 
debates were generally open to the public and aftbrded interesting and 
instructive entertainment. This energetic young school teacher studied 
law to some purpose, for he ultimately became Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of Missouri. Among the members of the society he 
organized were Dr. Farrar, Dr. Lowry, Major O'Fallon, Edward Bates, 
and Joshua Barton — names afterward rendered eminent by ability and 
public service. The population of the town in 1810 was about 1,400. 
In May, 1812, the chiefs of the Osage, the Shawnees, Delawares, and 
other tribes, came here to accompan}^ General Wm. Clark to Washing- 
ton, the purpose being to consummate some negotiations then pending, 
and to impress the savages with some true idea of the greatness and 
power of the Government. This General Clark was the brother of 
General George Rogers Clark, so distinguished in the West during the 
Revolutionary war, and was the companion of Lewis in the famous ex- 
pedition to Upper Missouri, and had remarkable experience and judg- 
ment in dealinir with the Indians. The war of 181 2 between the United 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 33 

States and England produced but little effect upon our city, so far re- 
moved inland, but the people took a lively interest in the progress of the 
conflict, and participated in the general rejoicing over its honorable 
close. 

In August, 1816, the Bank of St. Louis was incorporated, being the 
first institution of the kind in the town. The following gentlemen com- 
posed the commissioners: Auguste Chouteau, J. B. C. Lucas, Clement 
B. Penrose, Moses Austin, Bernard Pratte, Manuel Lisa, Thomas Brady, 
Bartholomew Berthold, Samuel Hammond, Rufus Easton, Robert Simp- 
son, Christian Wilt and Risdon H. Price. At an election, held on the 
20th of the following month, Samuel Hammond was elected President, 
and John B. N. Smith, Cashier. The career of this bank was not success- 
ful-, and continued for something over two years, when it came to a dis- 
astrous close. On the ist of Februar}^ 1817, the Missouri Bank was 
incorporated, the commissioners appointed by the stockholders to 
receive subscriptions being Charles Gratiot, William Smith, John 
McKnight, J. P. Cabanne, and Mathew Kerr. The first President was 
Auguste Chouteau, and the Cashier Lilburn W. Boggs. 

A census published in the Afissouri Gazette, December 9, 1815, and 
taken by John W. Thompson, states that the number of souls in the 
town was 2,000, and the total population of county and town 7,395. 

On the 2d of August an event occurred which marked the commence- 
ment of a new epoch in the history of St. Louis. Heretofore its growth 
had been dependent upon human energies alone, but now a new agency 
was to enter into its commercial life which was to enable her to reap the 
full benefit accruing from the noble river that rolled past her to the sea. 
The first steamboat arrived on the day named. It was called the "Pike," 
and was commanded by Captain Jacob Reed. The inhabitants were, as 
might be expected, greatly interested and delighted as the novel craft 
touched the foot of Market street, many of them having never seen a 
vessel of the kind before. Some Indians who were in town were so 
alarmed at the unusual spectacle that they receded from the shore as the 
boat neared, and could not be persuaded to come in the vicinity of the 
monster, for such it seemed to them, although in reality but a tiny Httle 
vessel. She was propelled by a low-pressure engine, and had been 
built at Louisville. The second boat .which arrived here was the "Con- 
stitution," commanded by Captain R. P. Guyard, and the 2d of Octo- 
ber, 1817, was the date of her arrival. In May, 1819, the first steam- 
boat stemmed the tide of the Missouri; it was the "Independence," 
Captain Nelson commanding, and went up as far as "Old FrankHn," 
3 



34 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

after a passage of seven running days. The first steamboat from New 
Orleans, the "Harriet," commanded by Captain Aarmitage, reached 
here on the 2d of June, 1819, making the voyage in twenty-seven days. 

In 1817 the first board of school trustees was formed, which may be 
regarded as the commencement of the present unsurpassed school sys- 
tem. They were William Clark, William C. Carr, Thomas H. Benton, 
Bernard Pratte, Auguste Chouteau, Alexander McNair and John P. 
Cabann'e. During the following year, the application of Missouri for 
admission into the Union gave rise to a most exciting political agitation, in 
which the whole nation participated. The Southern members of Con- 
gress insisted that the new State should be admitted without restriction 
as to slavery, while the members from the North as bitterly opposed any 
extension of the slave system. It is not our province to more than men- 
tion the interesting and important aspect of the discussion that ensued, 
as it is a subject fully treated in the political history of the countr3^ 
The result was the celebrated "Missouri Compromise," which in effect 
allowed the formation of the Missouri Constitution without restriction, 
but declared that slavery should not extend in any new-formed State 
north of 36 degrees 40 minutes north latitude. The convention which 
framed the first Constitution of the State of Missouri assembled in 1820 
in this city. The place of meeting was Mansion House, then a build- 
ing of considerable importance, on the corner of Third and Vine 
streets, now known as the City Hotel. 

Mr. John Jacob Astor established a branch of his house in this city in 
1819, under the charge of Mr. Samuel Abbott, and it was called the 
Western Department of the American Fur Company. This compan^^ 
entered upon a most successful career, embracing in its trade the north- 
ern and western parts of the United States, east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. About this time the old Missouri Fur Company was revived, with 
new partners, among whom were Major John Pilcher, M. Lisa, Thomas 
Hempstead and Captain Perkins. We may incidentally mention that in 
1823 a hunting and trapping party of this company, under Messrs. 
Jones and Immel, while on the Yellowstone, wiTf attacked b}^ BlacL 
Feet Indians. The leaders and several of the party werr killed, and 
those who escaped were robbed of whatever property they had with 
them. This company only continued a few years, and was not success- 
ful. The important expedition of General Wm. H. Ashlex ook piare 
also in this year, and resulted in the discovery of the southern pass of 
the Rocky Mountains, and the opening of commercial intercourse with 
the countries west of the same. The General encountered fierce oppo- 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 35 

sition from the Indians, and lost fourteen men, and had ten wounded in 
a fight at the outset of the expedition. 

A city directory was pubHshed in 1821, which furnishes some inter- 
esting information respecting the condition of the town at the time, and 
from which we make the following extracts : 

" It is but about forty years since the now flourishing but yet more 
promising State of Missouri was but a vast wilderness, many of the 
inhabitants of this country yet remembering the time when they met 
together to kill the buffalo at the same place where Mr. Philipson's ox 
saw and flour mill is now erected, and on Mill creek, near to where 
Mr. Chouteau's mill now stands. What a prodigious change has been 
operated ! St. Louis is now ornamented with a great number of brick 
buildings, and both the scholar and the courtier could move in a circle 
suiting their choice and taste. 

" By the exertions of the Right Rev. Bishop Louis Wm. Du Bourg, 
the inhabitants have seen a fine cathedral rise at the same spot where 
stood an old log church. * * * -^j^jg elegant building was com- 
menced in 1818, under the superintendence of Mr. Gabriel Paul, the 
architect, and is only in part completed. As it now stands it is forty 
feet by one hundred and thirty-five in depth and forty in height. When 
completed it will have a wing on each side running its whole length 
twenty-two and a half feet wide and twenty-five in height, giving it a 
front of eighty-five feet. ■ It will have a steeple the same height as the 
depth of the building, which will be provided with several large bells 
expected from France. The lot on which the church, college and other 
buildings are erected embraces a complete square, a part of which is 

used as a burial ground. 

* * * ****** 

"It is a truly delightful sight, to an American of taste, to find in one 
of the remotest towns in the Union a church decorated with original 
paintings of Rubens, Raphael, Guido, Paul Veronese and a number of 
others by the first modern masters of the Italian, French and Flemish 
scl">ools. The ancient and precious gold embroideries which the St. 
Louis Cathedral possesses would certainly decorate any museum in the 
world. All this is due to the liberality of the Catholics of Europe, who 
presented these rich articles to Bishop Du Bourg, on his last tour through 
France, Italy, Sicily and the Netherlands. Among the liberal benefac- 
tors could be named many princes and princesses, but we will only insert 
the names of Louis XVIII. the present King of France, and that of the 
Baroness Le Candele de Ghyseghern, a Flemish lady, to whose munifi- 



36 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

cence the Cathedral is particularly indebted, and who, even lately, has 
sent a fine, large and elegant organ, fit to correspond with the rest of the 
decorations. The Bishop possesses beside, a very elegant and valuable 
library, containing about eight thousand volumes, and which is, without 
doubt, the most complete scientific and literary repertory of the Western 
country, if not of the Western world. Though it is not public, there is 
no doubt but the man of science, the antiquary, and the linguist will 
obtain a ready access to it, and find the Bishop a man at once endowed 
with the elegance and politeness of the courtier, the piety and zeal of the 
apostle, and the learning of a father of the church. Connected with 
this establishment is the St. Louis College, under the direction of Bishop 
Du Bourg. It is a tv/o-story brick building and has about sixty-five 
students, w^ho are taught the Greek, Latin, French, English, Spanish 
and Italian languages, mathematics, elementary and transcendent, draw- 
ing, &c. There are several teachers. Connected with the college is an 
ecclesiastical seminary, at the Barrens, in Ste. Genevieve county, where 
divinity, the oriental languages and philosophy are taught. 

"St. Louis likewise contains ten common schools; a brick Baptist 
church, forty feet by sixty, built in 1819, and an Episcopal church of 
wood. The Methodist congregation hold their meetings in the old Court 
House, and the Presbyterians in the Circuit Court room." We gather 
the following additional facts from the same work : There were three 
newspapers then in the city, the SL Louis Enquii-cr^ Missouri Gazette, 

and St. Louis Register. 

* * * ****** 

"Eight streets run parallel with the river, and are intersected by twen- 
ty-three others at right angles ; three of the preceding are in the lozver 
part of the town, and the five others are in the ufper part. The streets 
in the lower part of the town are narrow, being from thirty-two to thirty- 
eight and a half feet in width ; those on 'the Hill' or upper part are much 
wider. 'The Hill' is much the most pleasant and salubrious, and will 
no doubt become the most improved. The lower end of Market street 
is well paved, and the trustees of the town have passed an ordinance for 
paving the sidewalks of Main street, being the second from and parallel 
to the river, and principal one for business. This is a very wholesome 
regulation of the trustees, and is the more necessary, as this and many 
other streets are sometimes so extremely muddy as to be rendered almost 
impassable. It is hoped that the tmstees will next pave the middle of 
Main street, and that they will proceed gradually to improve the other 
streets, which will contribute to make the town more healthy, add to the 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 37 

value of property, and make it a desirable place of residence. On the 
Hill, in the centre of the town, is a public square, two hundred and forty 
by three hundred feet, on which it is intended to build an elegant court 
house. The various courts are held at present in buildings adjacent to 
the public square. A new stone jail of two stories, seventy feet front 
by thirty deep, stands west of the site of the court house. Market 
street is in the middle of the town, and is the line dividing the north 
part from the south. Those streets running north from Market street 
have the addition of North to their names, and those runnino; in the 
opposite direction, South. For example: North Main street. South 
Main street. North A, &c., street, South A street. The houses were first 
numbered by the publisher of this Directory in May, 182 1, The forti- 
fications erected in early times for the defense of the place, stand prin- 
cipally on the Hill. They consist of several circular stone towers, about 
fifteen feet in height and twenty in diameter, a wooden block-house and 
a large stone bastion, the interior of which is used as a garden by Cap- 
tain A. Wetmore of the United States army. 

"Just above the town are several Indian mounds and remains of anti- 
quity, which afibrd an extensive and most charming view of the town 
and beautiful surrounding country situated in the two States of Missouri 
and Illinois, which are separated by the majestic Missouri, and which is 
likewise observed in the scene, as he glides along in all his greatness. 
Adjacent to the large mound, nearest the town, is the Mound Garden, 
belonging to Colonel Elias Rector, and kept by Mr. James Gray as a 
place of entertainment and recreation. The proprietor has displayed 
considerable taste in laying it out in beds and walks, and in ornamenting 
it with flowers and shrubbery. In short, it afibrds a delightful and 
pleasant retreat from the noise, heat and dust of a busy town. 

"There is a Masonic hall, in which the Grand Lodge of the State of 
Missouri, the Royal Arch, and the Master Mason's Lodges are held. 
Connected with this excellent institution is a burying ground, where 
poor Masons are interred at the expense of the fraternity. The council 
chamber of Governor William Clark, where he gives audience to the 
chiefs of the various tribes of Indians who visit St. Louis, contains, pro- 
bably, the most complete museum of Indian curiosities to be met with 
anywhere in the United States, and the Governor is so polite as to per- 
mit its being visited by any person of respectability at any time. 

* * * * ** *** 

"Population in 1810, 1000 ; in 1818, 3,500, and at this time (1821) 
about 5'5oo- '^he town and county contain 9,732. The population is 



38 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

much mixed, consisting principally of Americans from every part of the 
Union, the original and other French, of whom there are one hundred 
and fifty-five families, and foreigners of various nations ; consequently, 
the society is much diversified, and has no fixed character. This, the 
reader will perceive, arises from the situation of the country, in itself 
new, flourishing and changing ; still, that class who compose the respect- 
able part' of the community are hospitable, polite and well-informed. 
And here I must take occasion, in justice to the town and countr}?^, to 
protest against the many calumnies circulated abroad, to the prejudice 
of St. Louis, respecting the manners and dispositions of the inhabitants. 
Persons meet here with dissimilar habits produced by a different educa- 
tion, and possessing various peculiarities. It is not, therefore, surpris- 
ing that, in a place composed of such discordant materials, there should 
be occasional differences and difficulties. But the reader may be assured 
that old-established inhabitants have little participation in transactions 
which have so much injured the town. 

"St. Louis has grown very rapidly. There is not, however, so much 
improvement going on at this time, owing to the check caused by general 
and universal pressure that pervades the countr}^ This state of things 
can only be temporary here, for it possesses such permanent advantages 
from its local and geographical situation that it fmust, ere some distant 
day, become a place ofjgreat importance, being more central with regard 
to the whole territory belonging to the United States than any other con- 
siderable town, and uniting the advantages of the three great rivers, Mis- 
sissippi, Missouri and Illinois, of the trade of which it is the emporium. 

"The Missouri Fur Company was formed by several gentlemen of St. 
Louis in 1819, for the purpose of trading on the Missouri river andUts 
waters. The principal establishment of the company is at Council 
' Bluffs, yet they have several other of minor consequence several hundred 
miles above, and it is expected that the establishment will be extended 
shortly up as high as the Mandan villages. The actual capital invested 
in the trade is supposed to amount at this time to about $70,000. They 
have in their employ, exclusive of their partners on the river, twenty-five 
clerks and interpreters, and seventy laboring men. 

"It is estimated that the annual value of the Indian trade of the Mis- 
sissippi and Missouri rivers is $600,000. The annual amount of imports 
to this town is stated at upwards of $2,000,000. The commerce by 
water is carried on by a great number of steamboats, barges and keel- 
boats. These center here, after performing the greatest inland voyages 
known in the world. . The principal articles of trade are fur, peltry and 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 39 

lead. The agricultural productions are Indian corn, wheat, rye, barley, 
oats, buckwheat, tobacco and other articles common to the Western 
country. Excellent mill-stones are found and made in this county. 
Stone coal is abundant, and saltpetre and common salt have been made 
within a few miles. Within three or four miles are several springs of 
■good water, and seven miles southwest is a sulphur spring. In the 
vicinity are two natural caverns, in limestone rocks. Two miles above 
town, at North St. Louis, is a steam saw-mill, and several common mills 
are on the neighboring streams. The roads leading from St. Louis are 
very good, and it is expected that the great national turnpike will strike 
this place, as the commissioners for the United States have reported in 
favor of it. 

"There were two fire engines with organized companies, one of which 
was stationed in the northern, the other in the southern part of the 
town. Two steam ferry-boats, the property of Mr. Samuel Wiggins, 
were in regular operation between the city and the opposite shore, and 
the river at the ferry w^as one mile and one-eighth in width. Opposite 
the upper part of the town, and above the ferry, is an island about one 
mile and one-half in length, and containing upwards of i,ooo acres, the 
property also of Mr. Wiggins. A considerable sand-bar has been 
formed in the river adjoining the lower part of the town, which extends 
far out, and has thrown the main channel over on the Illinois side ; when 
the water is low it is entirely dry and covered with an immense quantity 
of drift-wood, nearly sufficient to supply the town with fuel, costing 
onl}^ the trouble of cutting and hauling. This is of great consequence 
to the inhabitants, particularly as the growth of wood is small in the 
immediate neighborhood on this side of the river. Wood is likewise 
brought down the river in large quantities for disposal." 

Only about four years had elapsed from the arrival of the first steam- 
boat at St. Louis to the time this directory was published, yet it is evi- 
dent that municipal growth had been exceedingly rapid ; business of all 
kinds, particularly in furs, peltries, lead and agricultural productions, had 
expanded greatly, while numbers of steamboats, barges and other craft 
were constantly engaged in the river commerce. In fact, even at this 
early period, the inhabitants appear to have had some idea of the great 
future before their city. The career of St. Louis as an incorporated city 
may be dated from December 9, 1822, when an act was passed by the 
State Legislature, entitled, "An act to incorporate the inhabitants of the 
town of St. Louis ;" and in April following, an election took place for a 
Mayor and nine Aldermen, in accordance with the provisions of the act. 



40 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



William Carr Lane was elected Mayor, with the following Aldermen : 
Thomas McKnight, James Kennerley, Phihp Rocheblane, Archibald 
Gamble, Wm. A. Savage, Robert Nash, James Loper, Henry VonPhul 
and James Lackman. The new city government proved a most et^ect- 
ive one, and immediately set about the improvement of the city. An 
ordinance was passed for the grading of Main street, and compelling 
citizens to improve the streets in front of their lots. The salary of the 
Mayor was only $300 per annum, but he applied himself with as much 
earnestness and assiduity to the public service as if he were receiving 
the present salary of $4,000. Before proceeding to sketch the progress 
of St. Louis as an incorporated city, the following items may be 
mentioned as illustrating the progress of building up to that time : Chou- 
teau's row, in block No. 7, was begun in 1818 and finished in 1819. 
During the same year three other buildings of an important character 
were erected ; the first by General Clark, the second by Bernard Pratte, 
at the corner of Market and Water streets, and the third, a large ware- 
house, by A. Chouteau, in block No. 6. The Catholic church, a large 
brick building on Second street, long since demolished, was constructed 
in 1818, and on Christmas day, 1819, divine service was performed 
there for the first time. The first paving which was laid in St. Louis 
was executed b}^ William Deckers, with stone on edge, on Market street, 
between Main and Water. In 182 1 the first brick pavement was laid on 
Second street, and finally it may be mentioned that the first brick 
dwelling was built in 181 3 by William C. Carr. There was, at the time 
we now speak of, but little indications of settlement on the eastern bank 
of the river opposite St. Louis, but the long strip of land near the 
Illinois shore had already earned the right to the title of Bloody Island, 
as more than one fatal duel had taken place there. The first was that 
between Thomas H. Benton, subsequently so distinguished a citizen, 
and Charles Lucas. The difficulty between the parties originated during 
a trial in which both were engaged as counsel. *Colonel Benton, 
believing himself insulted, gjiallenged Mr. Lucas, who declined on the 
ground that statements made to a jury could not properly be considered 
a cause for such a meeting. The ill feeling thus created was aggravated 
by a subsequent political controversy, and Mr. Lucas challenged Mr. 
Benton, who accepted. The meeting took place on Bloody Island on 
the morning of August 12, 181 7, pistols being the weapons used. Mr. 
Lucas was severely wounded in the neck, and owing to the effusion of 

*Charle8 Lucas challenged Thomas H. Benton's vote, and Benton called Lucas an " insolent puppy,'' which was 
the cause of the duel. 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 4I 

blood, was withdrawn from the field. A temporary reconciliation fol- 
lowed this duel, but the feud between the parties broke out afresh 
shortly afterwards, and another duel took place on Bloody Island, 
resulting in the killing of young Lucas at the age of twenty-five years. 
This deplorable re-encounter occurred on the 27th of September, 181 7. 
During the following year another duel occurred on Bloody Island, 
which also resulted fatally, the combatants being Captains Martin and 
Ramsey, of the United States army, who were stationed at the Fort 
Belle Fontaine, on the Missouri river. Ramsey was wounded, and died 
a few days afterwards, and was buried with Masonic and military honors. 
On the 30th of June, 1818, a hostile meeting took place at the same 
locality between Joshua Barton, District Attorney of the United States, 
resident in St. Louis, and Thomas C. Rector. The parties met in the 
evening, and Mr. Barton fell mortally wounded. An article which 
appeared in the Missouri Republican, charging General William Rector, 
then United States Surveyor, with corruption in office, was the cause of 
the duel. The General was in Washington at the time, and his brother, 
Thomas C. Rector, warmly espoused his cause, and learning that Mr. 
Barton was the author of the charge, sent him the challenge which 
resulted so fatally. Various other rencounters between the adherents to 
the "code of honor" took place at later dates on Bloody Island, so that 
the reader will see that its sanguinary appellation had a reasonable and 
appropriate origin. The more prominent of the other duels w^hich 
occurred there will be mentioned when we reach their appropriate 
dates. 

Notwithstanding the disastrous conflicts between the Indians and the 
followers of the Rocky Mountains and Missouri Fur Companies, which 
occurred in 1823, the progress of trade and exploration, under the dar- 
ing leadership of General William H. Ashley and others, was not 
seriously retarded. Benjamin O' Fallon, United States agent for Indian 
affairs, writes to General William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs, 
giving an account of the misfortunes of General Ashley's command, and 
adds: "Many circumstances have transpired to induce the belief that 
the British traders (Hudson's Bay Compan}^) are exciting the Indians 
against us, either to drive us from that quarter, or reap with the Indians 
the fruits of our labors." It is evident from all the records of that time, 
that trade and exploration in the Upper Missouri and Rocky Mountain 
region were environed with extraordinary hardships and perils, and 
nothing but the greatest courage, energy and endurance could have 
accomplished their advancement. In 1824, General Ashley made 



42 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



another expedition, penetrating as far as the Great Utah Lake, near 
which he discovered another and a smaller, to which he gave his own 
name. In this vicinity he established a fort, and two years afterward a 
six-pound cannon was drawn from Missouri to this fort, 1,200 miles, and 
in 1828 many loaded wagons performed the same journey. Between 
the years 1824 and 1827 General Ashley's men sent furs to this city to 
the value of over $200,000. The General, having achieved a hand- 
some competence during his perilous career, sold out all his interests 
and establishments to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, in which 
Messrs. J. S. Smith, David E. Jackson and William L. Sublette were 
principals, Mr. Robert Campbell then holding the position of clerk. 
The followers of this company penetrated the far West in every direc- 
tion, and had many conflicts with the Indians, and "traversed every part 
of the country about the southern branches of the Columbia, and ran- 
sacked nearly the whole of Californiji." It is stated on good authority 
that during the five years from 1825 to 1830, of the number of our men 
engaged in the fur trade, two-fifths were killed by the Indians, or died 
victims to the dangers of exploring a wilderness. 

In 1824 Frederic Bates was elected Governor, defeating General 
William Ashley after an exciting political contest ; but he did not long 
enjoy the honors of the position, for he was attacked by pleurisy and 
died in August of the following year. 

We now reach the date of an interesting event in the history of St. 
Louis, namely, the visit of Lafayette, who reached Carondelet on the 
28th of April, 1825, and the next morning came up to the city. He 
was tendered a most enthusiastic reception, as many of the citizens 
were not only of the same nationality, but all were familiar with his 
name and fame. He landed opposite the old Market House, where 
half the town were assembled awaiting his arrival, and received him 
with cheers, took his seat in a carriage, accompanied by Wm. Carr 
Lane, Mayor, Stephen Hempstead, an officer of the Revolution, and 
Colonel Auguste Chouteau, one of the companions of Laclede. Apart 
from private hospitalities, a splendid banquet and ball were given the 
distinguished visitor at the Mansion House, then the prominent hotel, 
and situated on the northeast corner of Third and Market streets. 
Lafayette was at this time sixty-eight years of age, but still active and 
strong ; he was accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, 
and some distinguished gentlemen from the South. The next morning 
he left for Kaskaskia, being escorted to the boat by crowds of citizens, 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 43 

who in every way manifested their esteem and respect, and his visit has 
always been regarded as a memorable local incident. 

During this year measures were taken to locate a permanent route 
across the plains. Major Sibley, one of the commissioners appointed 
by Government, set out from St. Louis in June, accompanied by Joseph 
C. Brown and Captain Gamble, with seven wagons containing various 
goods for trading with the Indians on the road. The party selected a 
route to Santa Fe, which afterwards was adopted as the general high- 
way for intercourse and trade. 

The first Episcopal church of any architectural importance was 
erected in this year, at the corner of Third and Chestnut streets. It 
afterwards passed into the hands of the Baptists, and finally disap- 
peared as business houses multiplied in the vicinity. The first Presby- 
terian church was erected in 1825, near the corner of Fourth and St. 
Charles streets, and was consecrated by the Rev. Samuel Giddings, but 
also disappeared as business limits expanded. The first steps towards 
building a Court House were taken in 1826, and the building, a large one 
of brick, was erected in the following year, and was destined to be suc- 
ceeded by the present superb structure of stone. Antonie Chenie built the 
first three-story house on Main street in 1825, and it was occupied by Tracy 
& Wahrendofl^ and James Clemens, Jr. ; Jefferson Barracks was com- 
menced in July, 1826, and Centre Market in 1827. The U. S. Arsenal 
was authorized by Congress in 1826, and was commenced during the 
next year on the block where it is now situated, but it was many years 
before it was completed. An ordinance was passed in 1826 changing 
the names of the streets, with the exception of Market street. From 
1809 those running west from the river, excepting Market, had been 
designated by letters, and they now received, in most instances, the 
names by which they are at present known. From the last date to 1830 
no events of prominent interest mark the history of St. Louis. Differ- 
ent ordinances were passed for the grading, paving and general improve- 
ment of streets ; and the growth of the city, if not rapid, was steady and 
satisfactory. Daniel D. Page was elected Mayor in 1829, and proved 
an energetic and valuable executive. Dr. Robert Simpson was elected 
Sheriff' by a large majority over Frederic Hyat, his opponent. The 
branch Bank of the United States was established here during this 
year. Colonel John O'Fallon was appointed president and Henry S. 
Coxe cashier, and during the years it continued in existence, possessed 
the public confidence and closed its career without disaster. 

In 1830 the number of brick buildings in the city increased considera- 



44 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



bly, as the multiplication of brick yards brought that material more into 
general use ; a bridge was erected across Mill creek, on lower Fourth 
street ; and, architecturally and commercially, there were evidences of 
solid advancement. The large yards and gardens, which surrounded 
so many of the dwellings and stores of earlier times, gradually disap- 
peared with the growth of improvements. Some excitement was caused 
this year by the decisions rendered by Judge James H. Peck, of the 
United States District Court, in regard to land claims, which were of a 
stringent character. Judge Lawless, who was interested as counsel in 
some cases in which Auguste Chouteau and others, and the heirs of 
Mackey Wherry, were plaintiffs vs. the United States, having avowed 
the authorship of a rather severe criticism which appeared in one of the 
newspapers on some decisions of Judge Peck, was committed to prison 
for contempt of court. He was released after a few hours on a writ of 
habeas corpus, and subsequently preferred charges against Judge Peck 
before the House of Representatives, which, however, were dismissed 
after some examination. On the first day of August, in this year, the 
corner-stone of the Cathedral on Walnut street, between Second and 
Third, was laid with religious ceremonies, and this building is now the 
oldest place of worship in the city, as all those erected previously have 
given place to other edifices. 

The population of the city in 1831 was 5,963. Various measures 
were adopted this year for public improvement, and an ordinance was 
passed for building the Broadway Market. The Missouri Insurance 
Company was incorporated with a capital of $100,000, and George 
Collier was elected president. In August a most schocking and fatal 
duel occurred on Bloody Island. Spencer Pettis, a young lawyer of 
promise, was a candidate for Congress, his opponent being David Bar- 
ton. Major Biddle made some severe criticisms on Mr. Pettis through 
the newspapers, and a challenge passed and was accepted. They 
fought at five paces distant, and at the first fire both fell mortally wound- 
ed. Mr. Pettis died in about twenty-four hours, while Major Biddle 
survived only a few days. The former had just gained his election, and 
General William H. Ashley was elected to fill the vacancy caused by 
his death. 

In 1832 the famous expedition of Captain Bonneville took place, and 
important steps were made in the opening of the great country to the 
West. Fort William was established on the Arkansas by the Messrs. 
Bent, of this city. Messrs. Sublette and Campbell went to the moun- 
tains. Mr. Wyeth estabhshed Fort Hall, on the Lewis river, and the 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 45 

American Fur Company sent the first steamboat to the Yellow Stone. 
The Asiatic cholera visited the city this summer, having first invaded 
Eastern and Southern cities. It first broke out at Jefferson Barracks, 
and, notwithstanding the most energetic sanitary measures, soon spread 
through the town with alarming severity. The population was then 
6,918, and the deaths averaged, for some time, more than thirty a day. 
The disease prevailed for little over a month, then abated and disap- 
peared. In this fall Daniel Dunklin, the Jackson candidate, was elected 
Governor, and L. A. Boggs Lieutenant-Governor. During the next 
year an effort was made to impeach William C. Carr, one of the Circuit 
Judges, and one of the oldest citizens, the charge being that he was 
wholly unqualified for judicial station. On examination of the case 
before both Houses of the Legislature he was acquitted. Dr. Samuel 
Merry was elected Mayor, but was declared ineligible on the ground of 
being a receiver of public moneys, which office he held under the 
appointment of the President, and the next autumn Colonel John W. 
Johnson was elected in his place. The taxable property was valued, in 
1833, at only $2,000,000, and the whole tax of the year on real and 
personal property amounted only to $2,745.84. The tonnage of boats 
belonging to the port was hardly 2,000, and the fees for wharfage not 
more than $600. 

In 1834 Mr. Astor retired from business and sold his Western depart- 
ment to Messrs. B. Pratte, P. Chouteau. Jr., and Mr. Cabanne, who 
conducted the business until 1839. ^ ^^"^^' years after this latter date, 
nearly the entire fur trade of the West was controlled by the house of 
Pierre Chouteau, Jr., & Co., and the firm of Bent & St. Vrain. 

The business of the city was now developing rapidly, although the lack 
of proper banking facilities made itself felt somewhat injuriously ; and 
while the unfortunate careers of the Bank of St. Louis and the Bank of 
Missouri had tended to make the people distrustful of such institutions, 
the want of them was generally recognized. During 1835-6 applications 
were made to the Legislature to supply this deficiency, but without suc- 
cess, and finally the banks of the other States were invited to establish 
branches in this city. Immigration at this period was unusually large, 
and a vigorous activity pervaded every department of business. As an 
illustration of this we quote from one of the newspapers: "The pros- 
perity of our city is laid deep and broad. ***** Whether 
we turn to the right or to the left, we see workmen busy in la^'ing the 
foundation of, or finishing, some costly edifice. The dilapidated and 
antique structure of the original settler is fast giving way to the spacious 



46 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

and lofty block of brick and stone. But comparatively a few years ago, 
even within the remembrance of our young men, our town was confined 
to one or two streets iTinning parallel with the river. The 'half-moon' 
fortifications, the 'bastion,' the tower, the rampart, were then known as 
the utmost limits. What was then termed 'The Hill,' now forming the 
most beautiful part of the town, covered with elegant mansions, but a few 
years ago was covered with shrubbery. A tract of land was purchased 
by a gentleman now living, as we have understood, for two barrels of 
whisky, which is now worth half a million of dollars. * * * * * 
Intimately connected with the prosperity of the city is the fate of the 
petition pending in Congress for the removal of the sandbar now form- 
ing in front of our steamboat landing." 

The number of boats in 1835, exclusive of barges, was 121 ; aggre- 
gate tonnage 15,470 tons, and total wharfage collected $4,573. In 
March of this year the sale of the town commons was ordered by the 
City Council, and in accordance with the act of the Legislature, nine- 
tenths of the proceeds were appropriated to the improvement of streets and 
one-tenth to the support of public schools. The sum realized for the 
latter was small, but it assisted materially in la3ang the foundation of the 
present system, so extensive and beneficent in its operation. John F. 
Darby was elected Mayor in 1835, ^^'^ during that year a meeting of 
citizens was called for the purpose of memorializing Congress to direct 
the great national road, then building, to cross the Mississippi at St. 
Louis, in its extension to Jefierson City. Mr. Darby presided at the 
meeting, and George K. McGunnegle acted as secretary: The popular 
interest in railroad enterprises, which at this time prevailed in the East, 
soon reached as far as St. Louis, and the 20th of April, 1835, an Inter- 
nal Improvement Convention was held in this city. Delegations from 
the counties in the State interested in the movement were invited to 
attend. Dr. Samuel Merry acted as chairman, and Mr. McGunnegle 
as secretary. The two railroad lines particularly advocated were from 
St. Louis to Fayette, and from the same point to the iron and lead mines 
in the southern portion of the State. A banquet at the National Hotel 
followed the Convention, and the event had doubtless an important 
influence in fostering railroad interests, always so important in the life of 
a community. 

A most exciting local incident occurred shortly after the sitting of the 
convention. A negro named Francis L. Mcintosh had been arrested 
for assisting a steamboat hand to escape who was in custody for some 
oflense. He was taken to a justice's office, where the case was 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 47 

examined, and the prisoner, unable to furnish the requisite bail, was 
delivered to Mr. William Mull, deputy constable, to be taken to jail. 
While on the way there, Mr. George Hammond, the Sheriff's deputy, 
met Mr. Mull and volunteered to assist him in conducting^ his charefe to 
the jail. The three men walked on together, and when near the north- 
east corner of the Court House block, the negro asked Mr. Hammond 
what would be done to him for the offense committed. He replied, in 
jest, "perhaps you will be hanged." The prisoner in a moment 
jerked himself free from the grasp of Mull, and struck at him with a 
boatman's knife ; the first stroke missed, but another followed inflicting 
a severe wound in the left side of the constable. Mr. Hammond then 
seized the negro by the collar and pulled him back, when the latter 
stinick him in the neck with the knife, severing the important arteries. 
The wounded man ran some steps toward his home, when he fell from 
loss of blood and expired in a few moments. The negro fled after his 
bloody work, pursued by Mull, who raised the alarm by shouting until 
he fainted from loss of blood. A number of citizens joined in the 
pursuit, and the murderer was finally captured and lodged in jail. An 
intense public excitement was created, and an angry multitude of 
people gathered round the jail. The prisoner was given up to them 
when demanded, by the aflrighted jailor, and was dragged to a 
point near the corner of Seventh and Chestnut streets, where the 
cries of the mob — "burn him! burn him!" — were literally carried 
into eflect. The wretched culprit was bound to a small locust tree, 
some brush and other dry wood piled around him and set on fire. 
Mr. Joseph Charless, son of the founder of the Republicans made an 
ineflectual effort to dissuade the crowd from their awful purpose, but 
he was not listened to, and in sullen and unpitying silence they stood 
round the fire and watched the agonies of their victim. In 1836, the 
corner stone of the St. Louis Theatre was laid at the corner of Third 
and Olive streets, on the site now occupied by the Custom House and 
Post Office, the parties principally interested in the enterprise being N. 
M. Ludlow, E. H. Bebee, H. S. Coxe, J. C. Laveille, L. M. Clark and 
C. Keemle. The building erected was quite a handsome one, and the 
theatre was canned on for a number of years until the property was 
purchased by the United States and the present Government buildings 
erected. The Central Fire Company of the city of St. Louis was also 
incorporated this 3^ear. The first steam flour mill, erected in St. Louis 
by Captain Martin Thomas, was burned down on the night of the loth 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

of July of this year. On the 20th of September the daily issue of the 
Missouri Republican commenced. 

On the ist of February, 1837, the Bank of the State of Missouri was 
incorporated by the Legislature with a capital of $5,000,000. The first 
officers elected were John Smith, president of the parent bank, with the 
following directors : Hugh O'Neal, Samuel S. Rayburn, Edward Walsh, 
Edward Dobyns, Wm. L. Sublette and John O'Fallon, all of St. Louis. 
A branch was also established at Lafayette, and J. J. Lowry was 
appointed president. Not long after the passage of the act incorporating 
the State Bank, another was passed excluding all other banking agencies 
from the State. The new bank with its great privileges and brilliant 
prospects, opened business in a house owned by Pierre Chouteau on 
Main street, near Vine. The total tonnage of the port in 1836 was 
19,447 tons, and the amount of wharfage collected between $7,000 and 
$8,000. In 1837 th^ Planters' House was commenced, but owing to 
the financial embarrassments of the year, the progress of the building 
was slow. Earl}" this summer Danniel Webster visited the city and was 
received with the utmost cordiality and enthusiasm. It was expected 
that Henry Clay would accompany him, bat he was prevented by 
business engagements. The distinguished guest and his family stopped 
at the National Hotel, and remained for several days. A public festival 
or barbecue was given them in a grove on the land of Judge Lucas, 
west of Ninth street, and the occasion became peculiarl}^ memorable 
from the fact that Mr. Webster delivered an eloquent speech. 

The general financial disasters of 1837 were felt to a serious extent in 
St. Louis, and the Bank of the State of Missouri suspended temporarih^ 
On September 26th, David Barton, a colleague of Colonel Thos. H. 
Benton in the United States Senate, and one of the most distinguished 
citizens of the State, died in Cooper county, at the residence of Mr. 
Gibson. In the summer of the next year Thos. M. Doherty, one of the 
Judges of St. Louis county, was mysteriously murdered on the road 
between this city and Carondelet, and the murderers were never dis- 
covered. In the fall General Wm. Clark died. He was the oldest 
American resident in St. Louis, was the first Governor of the Territory 
of Missouri, and as superintendent of Indian affairs rendered important 
public services. During this year Kemper College, which was built 
principally through the exertions of Bishop Kemper, was opened. The 
medical department was formed shortly after, and owed its origin to 
Drs. Joseph N. McDowell and J. W. Hall. On the 20th of November 
the Legislature met at Jefferson City, and during its session, which lasted 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 49 

until February, 1839, some important acts were passed in connection 
with St. Louis. The Criminal Court was established, over which the 
Hon. James B. Bowlin presided as Judge for several years. A bill was 
passed to incorporate the St. Louis Hotel Company, under the auspices 
of which the Planters' House was completed. A Mayor's Court was 
also established for the purpose of disposing of trials for breach of city 
ordinances. A charter was granted to the St. Louis Gaslight Company, 
but the streets were not lighted with gas by this corporation for many 
years afterwards. The present gas company holds its exclusive privil- 
eges under this charter ; and although the original intention of the 
Legislature was that the city should have the authority to purchase the 
works at a certain specified period, this has not been done and probably 
never will be. The charter expires by limitation in 1889. Christ 
Church was erected during this year, on the southwest corner of Chest- 
nut and Fifth streets, but after a few years yielded up its site to business 
edifices. Considerable agitation was current about this time, owing to 
the action of the Officers of the Bank of the State of Missouri in refusing 
to receive the notes of any suspended banks on deposit or in payment 
at their counter. This resolution was caused by the financial disturb- 
ance that pervaded the country and the fact that a number of banks 1n 
different States of the Union had again suspended specie payments. A 
strong efibrt was made by the merchants of the city to procure a rescind- 
ing of the resolution, and ten gentlemen, among the most prominent and 
wealthy in the city, ofiered to legally bind themselves to indemnif}^ the 
bank against any loss that might be sustained by the depression of the 
notes of any of the suspended banks. The directors, however, after a 
consultation, refused the proposition and adhered to their cautious 
policy, notwithstanding that some of their best patrons withdrew their 
deposits in irritation at this course. The result, however, showed that 
the bank acted wisely, and the public confidence in it was rather 
increased than impaired. The County Court ordered the commence- 
ment of an important addition to the Court House, commenced in 
1825-6, and the corner-stone was laid with the usual ceremonies in the 
presence of a large concourse of citizens. 

The total arrivals of steamboats at this port during the year 1839 was 
2,095 ; departures, 1,645. In the spring of 1840 the corner-stone of the 
Catholic church attached to the St. Louis University was laid, and a 
number of other buildings erected. During this year the unfortunate 
aftray between Mr. Andrew J. Davis, proprietor of the Argus, and Mr. 
Wm. P. Darnes, occurred, arising from some severe remarks published 



50 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



in the journal, reflecting on the latter. The parties chanced to meet on 
Third street, near the National Hotel, and Mr. Davis received several 
blows on the head from an iron cane in the hands of Mr. Darnes, and 
subsequently died from the effects. The trial of Darnes took place in 
November, and he was found guilty of manslaughter in the fourth 
degree, and fined $500. The steamer Meteor made the trip from New 
Orleans to this city in five days and five hours during the early part of 
this season, being the quickest trip ever made up to that time. The Hon. 
John F. Darby, the Whig candidate, was elected Mayor in April, and at the 
election for county officers in August, the same party was successful. 
There were ten insurance companies in existence in St. Louis in the year 
1841, many of which carried on a semi-banking business. 

In April, two young men, Jacob Weaver and Jesse Baker, met a shock- 
ing and violent death. They slept in a room, in a large stone building 
on the corner of Pine and Water streets, occupied in front by Messrs. 
Simmonds & Morrison, and in the rear by Mr. Wm. G. Pettus, banker 
and broker. An alarm of fire came from this building early on Sunday 
morning, April i8th, and one of the firemen, in forcing open the rear 
door, discovered the body of Jacob Weaver lying in a pool of blood, and 
evidently the victim of a cruel murder. The remains of Jesse Baker 
were discovered the next day in the iiiins of the building, which was 
nearly destroyed, and hardly a doubt remained that he had also been 
murdered. It may be mentioned that A. S. Kemball, first engineer of 
the Union Fire Company, was killed during the progress of the fire, by 
a portion of the wall falling on him. Subsequent investigations into the 
crimes, led to the arrest of four negroes, named Madison, Brown, 
Seward and Warrick, who, it was shown, had been influenced to enter 
the building by the hope of robbery. They were all convicted of murder 
in the first degree, and were executed upon the island opposite the lower 
part of the city, and the four-fold execution became so memorable an 
event, that the time was often alluded to as that "when the negroes were 
hung." 

The Legislature extended the city limits considerably this year, and 
the Mayor and Aldermen were authorized to divide the city into five 
wards. At the municipal election in April, John D. Daggett was elected 
Mayor, and in the same month the Planters' House was opened by 
Messrs. Stickney & Knight as proprietors. 

There were now in the city two colleges, the St. Louis University and 
Kemper College, with a medical school attached to each. The churches 
were as follows : Two Catholic, two Presbyterian, two Episcopal, two 



OF SAINT LOUIS, 5I 

Methodist, one Baptist, one Associate Reform Presbyterian, one Uni- 
tarian, one German Lutheran, and two for colored congregations. 
There were two orphan asylums, one under the charge of the Sisters of 
Charity, and one under the control of Protestant ladies. The Sisters' 
Hospital was in operation, and there were several hotels, the principal of 
which was the Planters' House ; six grist mills, six breweries, two foun- 
dries, and a number of other manufactories of different characters. 
Steamboat building had also been established as a permanent business, 
the originators being, it is stated, Messrs. Case & Nelson, and on all 
sides there were indications that the city was fairly launched on a pros- 
perous career. 

Among the prominent events of 1842 were the election of Hon. Geo. 
Maguire, as Mayor, in April, and the laying of the corner-stone of the 
Centenary Church, at the corner of Fifth and Pine streets, on the loth 
of May. This edifice long remained a prominent place of worship, but 
finally, in 1870, was changed into a business estabhshment. In the 
autumn of the year, the Hon. John B. C. Lucas died, one of the earliest 
citizens of St. Louis, and who had received from President Jefferson the 
appointment of Judge of the highest court in Missouri when it was the 
District of Louisiana. He was a man generally esteemed and respected, 
and his name is prominently and forever identified with the earlier years 
of our city. In the spring of the year, the "St. Louis Oak" was turned 
out from the boat-yard of Captain Irwine, ready to enter into the Galena 
trade, for which she had been built, and is stated to have been the first 
steamboat entirely built here, including machinery, engines, etc. In the 
May term of the St. Louis Criminal Court, the Hon. Br3^an Mullanphy, 
Judge of the Circuit Court, was arraigned for alleged oppression in the 
discharge of his judicial duties. The matter originated from the Judge 
having imposed three fines, of $50 each, on Ferdinand W. Risque, a 
lawyer. Mr. R., feehng some indignation while in the court room at a 
certain ruling which was contrary to that he had expected, made some 
contemptuous gesture or expression of countenance, and the Judge 
ordered him to be seated, and for each refusal imposed a fine, and finally 
ordered him to be removed from the court room by the Sheriff'. Judge 
Mullanphy was acquitted. 

There were now two public schools in St. Louis, one on Fourth, the 
other on Sixth street, and they were numerously attended, indicating 
that the people fully appreciated a general system of public instruction. 
On the third of July, the steamer Edna, a Missouri river boat, which 
had left St. Louis the night before with a large number of emigrants on 



52 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

board, exploded her boiler with terrible results. Fifty-live persons lost 
their lives by this catastrophe, and there was a large list of injured. 
General Henry Atkinson died this year at Jefferson Barracks, where 
his remains were interred. The only other incident we will mention 
was the murder of Major Flo3'd, at his residence near the Fair Grounds, 
on the night of the loth of August. The crime was perpetrated b}^ a 
party of live men, who robbed the house and escaped. A young man 
named Henry Johnson was convicted and executed for the crime, 
although he solemnly protested his innocence to the last moment. 

In March, 1843, Audubon, the French naturalist, visited the city on 
his way to the Yellowstone, in the interest of his favorite science. The 
business of the city improved generally this year, and there was no 
small activity in commerce and in building. The State Tobacco Ware- 
house was in course of erection, as well as some sixty stores on Front, 
Main and Second streets, and some three or four hundred other 
buildings. 

In June, 1844, Macready visited the place, and being then at the 
highest point of his fame and abilities, he created quite a general local 
sensation. He was succeeded by Forest, who divided with him popu- 
lar admiration. Judge P. Hill Engle died in the early part of the year. 
A Catholic church of some importance was commenced in Soulard's 
addition. A most memorable and disastrous rise in the Mississippi took 
place this year. About the 8th or loth of June, the river commenced 
to rise rapidly, while the intelligence was received of the rising of the 
Illinois and Missouri rivers. The levee was soon covered, and by the 
i6th the curb-stones of Front street were under water, and the danger 
to property and business became quite alarming. At first it was regarded 
as merely the usual "June rise," but the continued expansion of the flood 
soon convinced the inhabitants of its unprecedented and alarming char- 
acter. Illinoistown and Brooklyn were nearly submerged, the occupants 
of the houses being driven to the upper stories. The American Bottom 
was a turbid sea. The town of Naples was inundated, boats plying in 
the streets ; and from all places on the rivers came intelligence of heavy 
losses to stock and property, and the surface of the Mississippi was 
nearly covered with immense masses of drift trees and other substances 
torn from the shores. As the reports reached St. Louis that the inhab- 
itants of the towns and villages on the Illinois shore, and other places 
on the river, were in danger, active measures were taken for their relief. 
Captain Saltmarsh, of the steamer Monona, particularly distinguished 
himself by offering the use of his boat gratis. Between four and five 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 53 

hundred persons in St. Louis and vicinity were driven from their homes, 
and' great distress prevailed. To procure means to alleviate this, a 
meeting of citizens was held in front of the Court House, and a list of 
committees appointed to obtain subscriptions. Quite a large amount 
was collected. The river reached its greatest height here on the 24th 
of June, when it was seven feet seven inches above the city directrix. 
A few days before this, the glad intelligence was received that the 
Upper Missouri and Illinois were falling, but the effect was not imme- 
diately evident here, and the water did not reach the city directrix, in 
its abatement, until the 14th of July. The rise of 1844 obtained a 
greater elevation than any previous similar event. The great flood of 
1785, known as L" annee des Grandes Eaux^ was surpassed, as were 
also the floods of 1811 and 1826. The number of buildings erected in 
1844 and 1845 was 1,146, and notwithstanding the misfortune of the 
great flood, the year was one of general prosperity. 

St. George's Episcopal Church was organized in 1845, the Rev. E. 
C. Hutchinson being pastor. During the summer of this year Colonel 
Wilham Sublette died in Pittsburgh, on his way East for the benefit of 
his health. He belonged to one of the old families of St. Louis, and 
his name has been alluded to more than once before in this sketch. In 
August, an election was held for members of the Convention to revise 
the Constitution, and was attended with much public interest. The City 
Hospital was commenced, but was not finished in its present form for 
several years afterward. The erection of Lucas Market was also 
commenced. 

The Mercantile Library Association was formed in 1846, and ulti- 
mately led to the erection of the fine building now occupied by them on 
Fifth street. The originators of the library were John C. Tevis and 
Robert K. Woods, and the first meeting of citizens in connection with 
the project was held at the counting room of Mr. Tevis, on the evening 
of December 30, 1846. There were eight gentlemen present, namely: 
CoL A. B. Chambers, Peter Powefl, Robert K. Woods, John F. 
Frankhn, R. P. Perry, Wm. P. Scott, John Halsall and John C. Tevis, 
all merchants, except Colonel Chambers. On the 13th of January fol- 
lowing, a meeting was held in accordance with a public call, at Concert 
Hall, and the Association was organized by the adoption of a constitu- 
tion. On the i6th of February, rooms were rented at the corner of 
Pine and Main streets, and in April it was opened to the members. At 
the end of the first year the cash receipts amounted to $2,689, the 
members numbering 283, with 1,680 volumes in the library. The Asso- 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

ciation prospered rapidly, and finally a joint stock company, designated 
the Mercantile Library Hall Association, was formed, the main object 
being the erection of a suitable building for the library. The first 
president was Alfred Vinton. On the loth of June, 185 1, it was 
determined to purchase a lot on the corner of Fifth and Locust streets, 
at a cost of $25,500. A design for the building by Robert S. Mitchell 
was adopted, and the present edifice erected. The estimated cost was 
$70,000, which, with the price of the lot, made the total expenditure 
$95,500. To illustrate the growth of this noble institution, we may add 
that the present building is now insufficient for its accommodation, and 
the question of erecting another, fire-proof in character, at a cost of 
$350,000, is being seriously considered. 

On the loth of January, of this year, Mrs. Ann Biddle died. She 
was the daughter of John Mullanphy, who was the possessor of great 
wealth, and had established the male department of the Mullanphy Orphan 
Asylum, besides being identified with other enterprises of a noble and 
charitable character. Mrs. Biddle was the widow of Major Biddle, 
who was killed in the duel with Mr. Pettis on Bloody Island, and shortly 
after her husband's death established a Female Orphan Asylum, and 
even surrendered her fine residence on Broadway for religious and 
charitable purposes. In her will she left an appropriation for a Widow's 
and Infants' Asylum, whilst her private charities, of which there is no 
earthly record, are believed to have been very large. The inclosed 
monument near Tenth and Biddle streets, with the inscription, "Pray for 
the souls of Thomas and Ann Biddle," is familiar to many of our read- 
ers. The spot for the monument was designated by Mrs. Biddle, who 
bequeathed a sum of money for the purpose of its erection. It is appro- 
priately placed in close contiguity with the noble institutions with which 
the names of the deceased are identified. The harbor of St. Louis 
again attracted public attention this year, owing to a sand-bar forming 
in the river nearly in front of the landing, extending from Dun- 
can's Island nearly to Cherr}^ street, and interruption of commerce 
became so evident, that the municipal and general Governments were 
compelled to take some active measures, which resulted in the removal 
of the obstimctions. An idea of the proportions now assumed by the 
commerce of the city may be gathered from the fact that in 1845 there 
were nearly 2,100 steamboats connected with the port, the aggregate 
tonnage being 358,045, and the number of keel and flat boats was 346. 

The war declared between the United States and Mexico created, 
this year, an unusual excitement in St. Louis. Numerous volunteers 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 55 

came forward, and the St. Louis Legion, a military organization, pre- 
pared for the field. A meeting of citizens was held with the view of 
raising supplies for the volunteers, and Colonel J. B. Brant started a 
subscription with $i,ooo, and Lucas, Mullanphy, Robert Campbell, 
Alfred Vinton, Benjamin Stickney and others subscribed liberally, and 
a few days afterwards the Legion departed for the South, under com- 
mand of Colonel Easton, with a grand public farewell demonstration in 
their honor. The corner-stone of the Odd Fellows' Hall had been laid 
April 26th, 1845, and on the 26th of October of this year the building 
was dedicated. 

In the early part of 1847 the Boatmen's Savings Institution was incor- 
porated, and it commenced a career which has proven not only success- 
ful, but most beneficial to the public. The most prominent event of 
this year was the public anniversary celebration, on the 15th of Feb- 
ruary, of the founding of St. Louis. The grand features of the day 
were an imposing public pageant and a banquet. At an early hour the 
various societies and other bodies participating, marched to the place of 
rendezvous, and at ten o'clock the procession moved in the following 
order : Chief Marshal, Colonel Thornton Grimsley and his aids, 
followed by the military companies, and the Apprentices' Library Asso- 
ciation bearing banners. Then came the Committee of Arrangements, 
and next the invited guests, the latter being the most interesting portion 
of the procession. In an open carriage was seated Mr. Pierre Chouteau, 
president of the da}^ and the only survivor of those who accompanied 
Laclede when he founded the city on the 15th of February, 1764. 
The other occupants of the carriage were Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and 
P. Ligueste Chouteau, his sons, and Gabriel S. Chouteau. In the next 
carriage were the Hon. William C. Carr, Colonel John O'Fallon and 
General William Milburn, and in other carriages were many others of the 
old inhabitants of the city. Without further specifying the features of 
this procession, some of which were highly interesting and unique, 
illustrating all the industries and trades, we will state that after carrying 
out the line of march the pageant ceased, and the Hon. Wilson Primm, 
orator of the day, addressed the multitude from the stand on the east 
side of Fourth street, fronting the Court-House, eloquently reviewing 
the history of St. Louis from its founding to the date of the celebration. 
The address was carefully prepared and contained a quantity of valu- 
able historical data not previously, we believe, presented in literary 
form. The banquet took place in the State Tobacco Warehouse, and 
proved an exceedingly brilliant affair. Among the speakers we may men- 



^6 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

tion Colonel L. V. Bogy, Colonel Campbell, Hon. William C. Carr, Mr. 
Thomas Allen, Mr. Crocket, Colonel Kennett, Dr. Linton, Mr. Darby, 
Mr. Treat, George R. Taylor and others. A ball at the Planters' 
House closed the proceedings of the memorable day. On December 
20th of this year, the telegraph lines connecting with the East reached 
East St. Louis, and our city was placed in telegraphic communication 
with the leading cities of the country. On the 28th of the same month 
an important meeting of citizens took place, to consider the advisability 
of the city subscribing $500,000 towards the construction of the Ohio 
and Mississippi railroad, the route of which from Cincinnati through 
Vincennes had been established. A committee of seven, comprising 
Messrs. Hudson, Gamble, Kennett, Darby, Kayser, Yeatman and 
Collier, were appointed for the purpose of petitioning the Legislature to 
authorize the subscription. The measure being supported by a general 
vote of the people, the subscription was finally made. The two most 
important agents in the developement of commerce — the telegraph and 
the railroad — were now identified with the growth of St. Louis, and 
her advancement became accelerated greatly through their influence. 

No public events of a very important character mark the year of 1848, 
but the career of the city, commercially and in reference to general 
improvements, was satisfactory. On the 2 2d day of June, Edward 
Charless died in his fiftieth 3^ear. His death excited no small amount 
of pubHc attention and regret, as he was very generally known, having 
come to this country, at a very early period, with his father, Joseph 
Charless. Several public meetings were held in connection with the 
intelligence of the victorious operations of our armies in Mexico, and the 
exciting reports of the revolutions in France and Germany. Towards 
the close of the year rumors prevailed of the approach of the cholera, 
which for more than a year previous had appeared in Europe and subse- 
quently at difterent points in the United States. A few cases occurred 
here, and the authorities w^ere stirred up to active sanitary precautions, 
but the dreaded disease did not develop itself until the ensuing spring. 
In April, 1849, the Bellefontaine Cemetery was established, the ground 
being previously known as the "Hempstead Farm," and was purchased 
from Luther M. Kennett. The names of the trustees mentioned in the 
act of incorporation are : John F. Darby, Henry Kayser, Wayman Crow, 
James E. Yeatman, James Harrison, Charles S. Rannells, Gerard B. 
Allen, Philander Salisbury, Wm. Bennett, Augustus Brewster and 
Wm. M. McPherson. The cemetery is now one of the most beautiful 
in the country. This year was one of the most disastrous in the history 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 57 

of St. Louis, owing to the outbreak of the cholera and the occurrence of 
a terrible conflagration. About ten o'clock on Thursday night, May 19, 
a fire broke out on the steamer White Cloud, lying at the wharf between 
Vine and Cherr}^ streets, and the steamboat and fire bells soon spread 
the alarm throughout the city. The flames rapidly enveloped the steamer, 
and, notwithstanding vigorous efforts to check their course, communi- 
cated to three or four other boats in the vicinity. The White Cloud 
became loosened from the wharf and drifted down the river with the 
current ; the blazing wreck came in collision with a number of other 
steamers, and in a short time twenty-three or four boats were in flames. 
The dreadful disaster did not, however, stop here. A stiff' breeze pre- 
vailed from the northeast, and an avalanche of fier}^ embers was whirled 
over the buildings on the levee, and soon a number of them were in 
flames. The first which caught fire was near the corner of Locust 
street, and the conflagration, rapidly extending south and westward, 
assumed the most stupendous proportions, and the utmost excitement 
and dismay prevailed over the city. Without sketching the devastation 
of the terrible calamity, we may say that it was by far the most serious 
of the kind that has ever visited St. Louis. All the buildings, with only 
a few exceptions, from Locust to Market, and between Second and the 
river, were destroyed or badly injured, and the progress of the fire was 
only arrested by blowing up buildings with gunpowder. In one of these 
explosions, Mr. T. B. Targee, the well-known auctioneer, was killed, 
and several others injured. Twenty-three steamboats, three barges 
and one canal boat were destroyed, the total value being estimated at 
about $440,000. The whole value of property destroyed reached over 
$3,000,000. The occurrence of the fire was a serious blow to our city, 
but the energy of its citizens was displayed in the manner with which 
they labored to repair its ravages, and the evidences of desolation and 
ruin soon disappeared, and new buildings were erected of a more 
substantial character than the old, and Main street was considerably 
widened. 

We turn from the fire to the second great calamity of the year. As 
before stated, the coming of the cholera was heralded during the fall of 
'48, and early in the ensuing spring it reappeared, the number of deaths 
increasing daily as the summer approached, and in June it assumed a 
vii-ulent epidemic form, and spread dismay throughout the community. 
At the time of the outbreak of the disease the sanitary condition of the 
city was exceedingly bad, the present sewer system having hardly been 
commenced, and most of the alleys were unpaved and in a shockingly 



58 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

dirty condition. When the cholera declared itself the authorities adopt- 
ed energetic sanitary measures, but without avail, and the mortality 
increased steadily. As is generally the case, there was a conflict of 
opinion respecting the disease among the physicians, and at first the 
medical board pronounced the use of vegetables injurious, and the City 
Council passed an ordinance prohibiting their sale within the city limits ; 
but this was shortly afterwards revoked. The Council finally, on recom- 
mendation of the Committee of Public Health, adopted quarantine reg- 
ulations, and a site for quarantine was adopted on Arsenal Island. 
Notwithstanding all the eftbrts made, the number of deaths increased to 
over o?ie hundred and sixty -per diem, which, in a city with a population 
of less than 64,000, indicates the truly alarming extent of the epidemic. 
The second day of July was observed as a day of humiliation and prayer, 
but it was not until late in the month that there was any sensible abate- 
ment in the epidemic, and about the middle of August it had nearly dis- 
appeared. Between June 25th and July i6th, the greatest mortality 
occurred, and from April 30th to August 6th the total number of deaths 
from all causes was 5,989, of which 4,060 were from cholera; and 
among the host of victims were many well-known citizens, and several 
prominent physicians. The disasters of this year seriously interrupted 
the progress of our city, but their effects were soon repaired, a bountiful 
harvest was gathered, and with the general improvement of the locality 
devastated by the fire, business revived and commercial facilities were 
extended. During the year the immense emigration to California, owing 
to the discovery of the gold fields and the general impression of the vast 
wealth and resources of the Far West, brought the project of a great 
railroad route across the continent prominently before the minds of our 
people. It was determined to call together a Mass Convention in St. 
Louis for the purpose of considering the enterprise, and invitations were 
sent to the prominent citizens of nearly every State in the Union. The 
convention assembled on the 15th of October, in the Court House, and 
was called to order by Judge A. T. Ellis, of Indiana. The result of the 
deliberations was a general conviction of the necessity of the road, and 
an influential committee was appointed to prepare an address to the 
people of the Union, soliciting their co-operation in inducing Congress 
to take the requisite action towards the end desired. It is thus evident 
that St. Louis citizens were the first to move in the great enterprise of 
a trans-continental railroad, and there are many living to-day who par- 
ticipated in these preliminary measures, who now witness the practical 
fulfillment of the stupendous achievement which they inaugurated. The 



OF SAINT I.OUIS. 59 

fine building on the corner of Seventh and Myrtle streets, then connected 
with the medical department of the St. Louis University, was built during 
this year, and owes its origin to the munificence of Colonel John O' Fal- 
lon. Louis A. Labeaume was this year elected Assistant Treasurer of 
the United States, and his bondsmen were all St. Louis citizens, repre- 
senting an aggregate wealth of over $6,000,000. 

An exciting and bloody affair occurred at the City Hotel on the night 
of the 29th of October. A day or so before, two unknown gentlemen 
arrived at the hotel, on the corner of Third and Vine streets, then kept 
b}^ Theron Barnum, and some trouble in reference to accommodations 
arose between them and Mr. Kirby Barnum, nephew of the proprietor, 
but it was settled without anything serious having occurred. On the 
night mentioned, Mr. Kirby Barnum retired to his room, and shortly 
after a shot was fired through the window, which fatally wounded him, 
and in attempting to leave the room he fell in the hall. Wm. Albert 
Jones, who occupied a room on the same floor, on opening his door to 
ascertain the cause of the firing, was shot dead, and H. M. Henderson 
and Captain W. D. Hubbell, who were rooming with him, were both 
wounded. The affair produced intense excitement, and the two stran- 
gers, who were Frenchmen, named Gonsalve and Raymond Montes- 
quiou, were accused of the crime. On the first trial the jury did not agree, 
and at the second, Gonsalve, who had confessed his guilt, and alleged that 
"God made him do it," was acquitted on the ground of insanity, and 
Raymond was shown to be innocent. The only other incident, worthy 
of special mention, in the year was the extraordinary robbery of the 
Bank of the State of Missouri. The sum of $120,000 was taken from 
the vaults, but the perpetrators of the robbery escaped with their booty. 

ST. LOUIS FROM 185O. 

The ten years embraced between 1850 and i860 were those of 
remarkable development for St. Louis, as they were also for the entire 
West. They were years of vigor and expansion of commercial ener- 
gies throughout the entire nation. Before that period the growth of St. 
Louis had been comparatively slow, and, although within less than a 
century from the rude foundation laid by Laclede an astonishing super- 
structure had arisen, the real v/onders of our city's history were yet to 
be achieved. In 1850 the population of the city was about 74,000; 
with the close of that decade it had risen to more than double, or 
160,000. During this time she shook herself cleai* from pretentious 



6o HISTORICAL SKETCH 

rivals, and was an acknowledged leader. Our railroad system was 
barely commenced. Our public institutions were yet to be built ; our 
iron manufactories to be established ; our hotels and splendid business 
houses to be reared ; and our system of parks, sewerage, water supply, 
and the other features and elements which go to make up a great city, 
were yet to be perfected. 

From 1850 forward, the limits of a single book do not admit of per- 
fect chronological order in selecting and presenting the events and 
initial enterprises which have a bearing upon the present. The delinea- 
tion, however, of the earlier events, gives a portraiture of a history 
replete with instructive thought. The last fourth of a century is fresh 
in the minds of many living men, and its record is comparatively safe 
from mutilation or perversion. The dim tradition and scattered memo- 
rials of the frontier village have been exchanged for the glowing and 
ever-available archives of the metropolis. It is a curious fact, that from 
the accumulated disasters of the year 1849 may be dated the more rapid 
and remarkable development of the city. Forth from the ruins of con- 
flagration, and the gloom of the shadow of death, she emerged upon a 
bright and broad career, with abounding vigor and exuberant life. 

The review of the mighty steps in civic progress in each succeeding 
year brings us upon constant matter for astonishment. 

The railroad convention held in 1849 ^^^^ quickly followed by sub- 
stantial fruits, and on the 4th of July, 185 1, ground was broken in the 
practical commencement of the Pacific Railroad, the company having 
been organized some time previously through the exertions of such citi- 
zens as Thomas Allen, James H. Lucas, Daniel D. Page, John O'Fal- 
lon and other public-spirited gentlemen. The following year witnessed 
the commencement of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, also the Terre 
Haute and Alton ; and in 1852 the Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, then 
called the Alton and Sangamon line, was opened to Carlinville by a 
public excursion. On the 30th of June, 1853, the Ohio and Mississippi 
was opened to Vincennes, and on the 4th of July of that year an excur- 
sion of citizens took place to the last named place. Thus our now 
splendid railroad system was inaugurated, and the rapidity of its devel- 
opment is significantly illustrated when we glance at the map and see 
trunk lines with their feeders radiating in every direction. Over these 
lines, trains are daily dispatched for the Atlantic and for the Pacific, for 
the great lakes of the North, and for the semi-tropical lands that hem in 
the waters of the Mexican Gulf. Yet the system is constantly expand- 
ing, and with each new track binds us, in newer ties, to distant people, to 



OF SAINT LOUIS . 6l 

whom St. Louis becomes the centre for exchange. The herds and pro- 
ducts of the prairies, and the treasures from the mines, increase with 
each new mile of this iron bond of commerce — a bond that, instead of 
resting on the neck, is placed beneath the feet — the mute servitor of a 
progressive people. In every other department of business enterprise 
the same activity prevailed. Noble and spacious business structures 
sprang up along our principal thoroughfares, and the territory allotted to 
business purposes grew apace. At the same time residences increased 
rapidly, and became more costly and imposing. The first Lindell Hotel, 
occupying the site on which the present house of that name stands, was 
commenced in 1857, and on its completion presented to the people of 
the country, the astonishing spectacle of a hotel beyond the Mississippi 
surpassing in magnitude any other in the United States. This noble 
edifice, one of the adornments of the city, was destroyed by fire in 1867. 
It was after a time rebuilt, and opened for business in 1874. "^^^ garden 
at Tower Grove, commenced in 1850, assisted in a material manner the 
growth of the western part of the city, which in that direction entered 
upon a new era of embellishment. The sewerage system was elab- 
orated. The water supply, evidently inadequate for the requirements of 
the near future, was reorganized with new machinery, settling reservoirs, 
and a storage reservoir at Compton Hill ; the whole expenditure in this 
department reaching four million dollars. During this period, too, the 
public school system took form and character, growing from a moderate 
beginning to a magnitude and perfection which was a proper source of 
pride to our citizens. 

In December, 1855, a charter was obtained for the St. Louis Agricul- 
tural and Mechanical Association, and officers were appointed May 5th, 
1856, as follows: J. Richard Barret, President; T. Grimsley, A. Har- 
per and H. C. Hart, Vice-Presidents ; H. S. Turner, Treasurer; G. O. 
Kalb, Agent and Recording Secretary, and Oscar W. Collett, Corres- 
ponding Secretary. The present site of the Fair Grounds was purchased 
from Colonel John O'Fallon, suitable buildings were erected, and in the 
fall of 1856 the first fair was held. It proved a most satisfactory suc- 
cess, and the career of the Association was fully inaugurated, which 
has resulted in substantial and important benefits to St. Louis. The 
fairs were interrupted during the exciting and troublous years of the war, 
but recommenced in 1866, each year since increasing in interest and 
attendance, and now transcending any effort of the kind in the country. 
In fact they have ceased to be representatives merely of the arts and 
industries, stock and agricultural products of one State ; they are national 



62 - HISTORICAL SKETCH 

exhibitions, with a premium list of great liberality ; and if their future 
growth corresponds with their past, their fame will extend beyond the 
boundaries of our country, and they will become international in char- 
acter. 

The street railway system introduced a new and important element in 
our city's growth. It was not till 1859 ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ omnibus lines began 
to give way to this new and superior method of locomotion. Its effect 
was soon to cause a surprising extension of the residence portion of the 
city. Distance came to be regarded with little or no disfavor, and the 
delightful elevated grounds on our western limits were adorned with the 
homes of our opulent citizens, who exhibited their wealth and taste in 
improved architecture and landscape. 

The Custom House and Post Office, at the corner of Third and Olive 
streets, was erected and occupied in 1859, ^^^ ^^^^ Postmaster being 
John Hogan. It was designed after the prevailing style of architecture 
adopted for United States public buildings at that time, and though 
massive and ornate, seems wonderfully lacking in every essential of 
utility and convenience. The exterior is that of a Grecian tempfe, 
with fluted columns and massive entablatures. Modern requirements 
added a roof where the Greek had none, and then added windows 
which he had no use for. The net result was one of those archi- 
tectural compounds that disfigure too many of our American cities, 
retaining the disadvantages without the beauty of their prototypes. 
The noblest use for these incongruous structures is to furnish an 
argument that the civilization of the present can neither gracefully nor 
comfortably translate itself into the shell of the past, and that our age 
is worthy of a distinctive architecture, in which beauty and utilit}^ shall 
not be encumbered with mere ornament. For the business purpose 
for which it was built it was long since inadequate, and a noble and 
more sightly pile is to supersede it, on the block bounded by Olive 
and Locust and Eighth and Ninth streets. The cost of the new 
building, now rising from its granite foundations, is estimated at four 
million dollars. It covers the entire block, and in the eastern front 
its basement is continuous with the tunnel leading from the bridge. 
This will facilitate the receipt and dispatch of the mails to an enormous 
extent, as the cars of every line of railroad leading to the city will 
pass upon those tracks. 

In 1857 the site was purchased for the Southern Hotel, and the 
work of excavating was commenced in the following spring. The 
laying of masonr}' progressed steadily until December 4th, 1858, when 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 63 

it ceased temporarily, and, having been covered to protect it from frost 
and rain, it remained in this condition until April 14th, i860, when 
work was resumed and continued until August 15th, 1861, when it 
was again suspended until June 17th, 1862. The splendid hotel was 
finally opened to the public September 6th, 1865, the lessees being 
Messrs. Laveille, Warner & Co., and the establishment representing a 
value of nearly one million and a half of dollars. The scale of the 
house is indicated by the following items : 17,000 yards of carpeting 
were required to carpet it, and 1,400 gas-burners to give it light; it 
has about 350 rooms with over 3,000 feet of corridor; the main one 
on each story is 257 feet long, with three others crossing it at right 
angles in length from about 80 to 200 feet. 

The Laclede Hotel was enlarged by the erection of a new building 
upon the site of the old jail, one of the ancient landmarks. The new 
edifice, of cut sandstone, was made continuous with that already in 
existence, the whole now extending from Fifth to Sixth streets, and 
fronting on Chestnut street. 

The project for rebuilding the Lindell Hotel upon its old site led to 
the contribution of a bonus of $100,000 by neighboring property owners 
and business men, who would be benefited by the erection of a fine 
hotel on that block, and the work was commenced. It is of brick, 
with an iron front, and though not so extensive as the old building 
over whose ashes it rose, it has advantages and conveniences which the 
former in its magnitude never possessed. It was opened for business 
in the autumn of 1874, ^J Felt, Griswold & Co., and has from the 
first enjoyed a fii'st-class reputation. Almost simultaneously with its 
erection, new and costly business structures rose along the whole lower 
part of Washington avenue and the streets in that vicinity intersecting 
the avenue. 

In addition to the northwardly movement of the business centre, the 
circumstance that the roadway of the bridge was continuous and in 
line with Washington avenue at Third street, exerted a strong influence 
upon permanent improvement in that locality. Third street, and Wash- 
ington avenue at its junction with Third, were also widened to give 
capacity to the bridge approaches ; and the mean and inconvenient 
buildings in the neighborhood, necessarily torn down, were replaced by 
some of the most ornamental buildings for business purposes in the city. 

The Merchants' Exchange building finished in 1859 was found to be 
inadequate for its purpose. Neither its location nor its conveniences 
met the wants of the thirteen hundred members who transacted busi- 



64 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

ness there, and in 1874 ^^^ corner-stone was laid for the "New Exchange 
Hall," covering the eastern half of the block bounded by Chestnut and 
Pine and Third and Fourth streets. The year 1875 will witness its 
completion, and the formal inauguration of one of the noblest "temples 
of trade" in America, one that will reflect credit upon our people, and 
be an enduring monument of the comprehensive and liberal spirit of our 
merchants. 

The Polytechnic, finished in 1867, occupying the corner of Seventh 
and Chestnut streets, is one of the adornments of that portion of the city. 
It is the headquarters of the public school department, and contains the 
public school library. As it is the centre from which extend the radiating 
arms of our educational system, that may be stated in the same connec- 
tion. From a small and uncertain beginning, it has grown to propor- 
tions exceeding any other in the West. The number of pupils enrolled, 
as shown by the quarterly report for June, 1875, was 36,157. The 
whole number of school-houses was fifty-seven. This number includes 
six colored schools, one high school and five branch high schools. The 
school-houses are handsome and substantial brick structures, well lighted 
and ventilated, and illustrate the prevailing force of a utility that is at 
the same time not devoid of grace. The pubhc school Hbrary in the 
Polytechnic building is in a flourishing condition. By a legislative act 
approved March 27, 1874, ^^^ School Board was given legal power to 
provide for all the wants of the library. In consequence of this law, the 
library is free to the public. Any one is at liberty to consult its collec- 
tion of books, papers and periodicals in the hall of the reading room. 
Notwithstanding the library is free, the membership system has been 
retained. Membership confers upon the holder the additional right of 
taking out books for home use, and of voting at annual elections for 
seven out of the sixteen members of the board of managers. The fee 
for membership is only one dollar per quarter, and twelve dollars paid 
in this manner within any four consecutive years, entitles the payer to a 
life-membership. The report for the year 1874 shows the regular library 
to contain 25,878 volumes, and the total number to amount to 33,556. 
The room now assigned as a reading hall is the large hall of the Poly- 
technic building, which is one hundred feet in length by fifty feet in 
width, and forty-two feet in height. There are to be found on file 
between sixty and seventy newspapers, in English, French and German, 
and all the principal American and foreign periodicals. An index of 
the periodicals to be found in the hall is placed at the entrance. The 
experiment of opening the hall on Sundays was tried in 1874, and its 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 65 

influence declared to be salutary by the officers in charge. The attend- 
ance on Sundays was found to be more than double that of secular days. 
The following societies have joined the library with their books and col- 
lections : The Art Society, the Medical Society, the Academy of 
Science, the Institute of Architects, the Engineers' Club, the Historical 
Societ}', the Microscopical Society and the Local Steam Engineers' Asso- 
ciation. The collection of technical literature, both standard and peri- 
odical, has received extraordinary accessions from the societies which 
have thus joined their eftbrts with the library. At the same time, the 
general collection is one that displays sound judgment in the administra- 
tion of this growing educator of youth and manhood. 

The County Insane Asylum was commenced in 1865, and finished in 
April, 1869. It is situated about two miles west of Tower Grove Park 
and the costly and charming garden of Mr. Henry Shaw, which he makes 
free of access to the public. The Asylum cost about $900,000, includ- 
ing the cost of the furniture and the boring of the artesian well. It has 
a capacity for about three hundred patients. 

The new jail, fronting on Clark avenue, and running east from 
Twelfth street on its southern side, is a sightly and commodious build- 
ing of cream-colored sandstone, in the Renaissance style of architecture. 
In outline it is almost a copy of the celebrated Louvre palace. The 
Police Court, and the inferior and superior Criminal Courts, occupy the 
main body of the building, from which it has come to be designated as 
"The Four Courts.'" It was completed early in 1871, at a total cost of 
about three-quarters of a million dollars. 

The Court House, completed in 1862, after years of labor and diffi- 
culty, has its history specially presented in these pages. 

The various newspapers have each sought better locations and more 
room, all of them in more commodious structures, some of which are of 
more than usual architectural beauty. 

Ranges of magnificent stores have been built along our principal streets, 
new church edifices, hospitals, asylums, and other eleemosynary institu- 
tions, have arisen in various directions. Few cities on the continent can 
boast a greater number, of elegant private residences. These, in St. 
Louis, are not confined to any particular locality, but are scattered 
throughout the city. 

There is yet one great structure around which centres the pride of 

every citizen of St. Louis. The bridge is a type of her greatness, her 

power, her enterprise. Across the Father of Waters stretches in three 

graceful arches, a web of steel that forms the roadway for the com- 

5 



66 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

merce of a continent. Nothing equal to it has yet been built ; it stands 
alone as a monument of determined purpose, engineering skill and 
unchecked expenditure. It consists of three arches, supported by abut- 
ments on either shore, and two massive stone piers, sunk below the bed 
of the river to a rock foundation. The sinking of the east pier was 
justly regarded as one of the great engineering feats of the age. When 
the rock was reached it was one hundred and ten feet six inches below 
the water line. The piers are each five hundred feet from the abut- 
ments, and five hundred and twenty feet from each other. The latter 
distance is therefore the measure of the central arch ; the other two being 
each five hundred feet. The grand stretch of five hundred and twenty 
feet of the middle arch exceeds largely the span of any other arch in the 
world, and also exceeds the span of any other bridge in the world other 
than suspension. The material of the arch — that part of it which sus- 
tains the load — is cast steel of the highest perfection known to the 
present state of manufacture. The steel is in the form of hollow tubes, 
a form which gives the greatest strength for the weight of material 
employed. The superstructure contains 2,200 tons of steel and 3,400 
tons of iron. The entire length of the bridge proper is 2,225 feet, and 
the entire expense of its construction $10,000,000. Following upon the 
agitation of some years, the first legislative enactment relating to the 
work was an act of the Missouri Legislature, incorporating the Illinois 
and St. Louis Bridge Company, with a capital stock of $1,000,000. 
This act was approved February 5, 1864. This was followed by an 
amended act approved February 20, 1865. 

The Legislature of Illinois passed an act which was approved Febru- 
ar}' 16, 1S65, authorizing the incorporators under the Missouri act to 
build a bridge under certain stipulations which it provided. An act of 
Congress approved July 25, 1866, authorized the construction of certain 
bridges of which this was one. These acts were not long upon the 
statute books before Captain James B. Eads, who became engineer-in- 
chief, took hold of the work and had his plans completed early in the 
spring of 1867. An acrimonious strife between two rival bridge com- 
panies then followed for about a year when a settlement was effected. 
The first work was put under contract in August of 1867 and a coffer 
dam was constructed for the west abutment pier, and rock was being 
taken from the quarries for the masonry. The work went on slowly 
however, and it was January 25, 1865, that witnessed the laying of the 
first stone. In the spring of 1868 Captain Ead's health failed, and he 
passed the succeeding summer in Europe. On his return the work was 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 67 

vigorously pushed, and caissons built for the work of sinking the central 
piers. In 1871, the superstructure was put under contract to the Key- 
stone Bridge Compan}' of Pittsburg. Each span consists of fourti-uss- 
ribbed arches, each rib made of two steel tubes placed twelve feet apart 
in the span. The coupling pins and fastenings are of the best quality 
of steel, the brace bars of the best quality of charcoal iron. Each part 
before being placed in position was subjected to the most exacting tests. 
When the material arrived, the arches were built up without the aid of 
"false works" b}' an ingeniously devised plan of Colonel Henry Flad, 
chief assistant to Captain Eads. Throughout the whole progress of the 
work, the operations were watched with intense interest by the engineers 
of the world, who saw new theories tested upon a scale of the greatest 
magnificence. 

On the 4th of July, 1874, ^^^^ completion of the great bridge was 
formally announced, and the event was celebrated with a unanimity of 
enthusiasm and a civic display such as our country has rarely, if ever, 
witnessed. There were no circumstances to detract from the general 
satisfaction and pride. A great and noble work had been completed 
that brought us nearer to a glorious destiny. It was at once a prophecy 
and a fulfillment, and symbolized a future for which, like itself, the 
world had no equal. The carriage way was carried along over the 
crown of the arches, and was continuous with the grade of Washing- 
ton avenue. The railway track was upon the line of the chord of the 
upper arch and twelve feet below the grade of the street. 

The tunnel, constructed by another company, -commences at the 
west end of the bridge, follows the line of Washington avenue to 
Seventh, when it bends to the south to strike the line of Eighth street, 
which it follows to Clark avenue. From there an open cut for a short 
distance brings it upon the plane of the Pacific Railroad, and to the 
Union Depot at Twelfth street. Its total length is 4,886 feet. Its 
construction was carried on by an open cut, from which was excavated 
210,000 cubic yards of dirt. Then, upon massive stone walls on either 
side and through the centre, were built two parallel brick arches, the 
track being double, one on either side of the central wall. The 
roadway was then reconstructed upon the same grade as before, and 
now railway trains constantly traverse the heart of the cit}-, too far 
beneath the surface to indicate their presence to those walking directly 
over them. 



68 HISTORICAL SKETCH 



HISTORY OF THE COURT HOUSE. 

The Court House building, which towers above the city, giving it at 
a Httle distance an aspect Hke London with its Saint Paul's, is one of 
the most massive and imposing structures of the kind in the country. 
Ornamenting as it does one of the central blocks of the city, it 
deserves a recitation of the particulars of its history. 

On the 14th of December, 1812, an act was approved entitled, "An 
act concerning a Court House and Jail in the county of Saint Louis," and 
in accordance with its provisions, Thomas Sappington, of Gravois, 
Ludwell Bacon, of Bonhomme, Robert Quarles, of St. Ferdinand, and 
Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Wm. Carr Lane, of the town of Saint Louis, 
were appointed commissioners to select a proper site within the town of 
St. Louis whereon to erect a Court House for said county. The 
commissioners were also authorized to receive proposals from all per- 
sons wishing to make donations of land for the purpose named, and to 
accept any donation that might seem to them most beneficial to the 
county ; and to cause a deed of conveyance to be executed whereby the 
land so donated should be conveyed to the Justices of the County Court 
and their successors in office. Under the authority conveyed in this act, 
the Commissioners named selected the site now occupied by the Court 
House, which was donated for the purpose by the proprietors, John B. 
C. Lucas and Auguste Chouteau ; the date of the report of the Com- 
missioners being August 25, 1823. It is stated that under the old 
regime, the whipping-post was placed at a point on the site now occu- 
pied by the Court House. The first step towards the erection of the 
building was taken by the County Court on the 9th of November, 1825, 
the Justices then being Joseph V. Garnier, Peter Ferguson, and Francis 
Nash ; when the sum of $7,000 was appropriated for the purpose, and 
Alexander Stuart was appointed Commissioner to superintend the work. 
On the 7th of February, 1826, an additional appropriation in the sum of 
$5,000 was made, and on the 9th of the same month Mr. Stuart sub- 
mitted plans for the building, which were approved, the estimate of the 
cost being $12,000. Some difficulty appears to have occurred relative 
to the plans adopted, for on May i, 1826, a plan prepared by Messrs. 
Morton & Laveille was approved, and $2,000 additional was appropri- 
ated. Stuart's plan was apparently thrown overboard, and the contract 
for the erection was awarded to Joseph C. Laveille and George Morton, 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 69 

for $14,000, and bears date May 26, 1826. At a meeting of the Court, 
held on July 26 of the same year, Henry S. Geyer was appointed 
Commissioner to superintend the building of the Court House, vice 
Alexander Stuart, resigned. This building was completed on the loth 
of August, 1833, the entire cost being $14,416.16. 

In June, 1838, the public business had so increased, and the necessity 
for greater accommodations was so evident, that the court asked for 
proposals for clerks' offices on the southwest corner of the square (Fifth 
and Market streets), to be 132 feet long by 36 feet in width. In Sep- 
tember, 1838, another public notice was given, and an offer of $100 for 
the best plan for a building on the Public Square, either adjoining the 
Court House or adjacent thereto. A plan submitted by Henry Single- 
ton on July 8th, 1839, '^'^''^^ adopted, and the designer was appointed 
architect and superintendent. This was really the commencement of the 
present imposing structure, and the first contract for work was made by 
Mr. Singleton with Joseph Foster, for the carpenter work, on August 
12, 1839, ^"^ ^^ April, 1842, a contract for the cut-stonework of the 
rotunda was awarded to J. H. Hall. The work progressed slowly until 
1 83 1, when Robert S. Mitchell was appointed architect and superintend- 
ent, and he immediately proceeded to tear down the old building, which 
stood where the east wing was to be erected, and in October, 1852, 
contracted with Mr. Bernard Crickard for the cut-stone work for the 
wing. It was subsequently decided by the Court to have the north and 
south wings, and on the 28th of May, 1853, Mr. Mitchell contracted 
with Mr. Crickard for the cut-stone work of the south wing, and in 
July, 1853, for the six stone columns in the portico of the east wing. 
In May, 1857, the court superseded Mr. Mitchell and appointed Thomas 
D. P. Lanham to the office, at a remuneration of four per cent, on the 
amount of work done under his supervision. The County Court was 
aboHshed by the Legislature, and on the first Monday in August, 1859, 
the Board of County Commissioners were elected, and on the 21st of 
September following the Board declared the office of architect and super- 
intendent vacant, and the day after appointed William Rumbold to the 
office, at a salary of $125 per month. The work from this period pro- 
gressed with steadiness. The design for the dome prepared by Mr. 
Lanham was rejected, and the wrought-iron dome devised by Mr. Rum- 
bold was adopted, having been carefully tested, and the contract for the 
erection awarded to Mr. James McPheeters. 

Without pursuing the different steps of the work as it neared comple- 
tion, it is sufficient to state that this splendid building, after the l"pse of 



70 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



a quarter of a century from the time of its commencement, was pro- 
nounced completed at the beginning of July, 1862. 
The cost of the work was as follows : 

Cut-stone work $383)647 o5 

Other stone work 48'455 9^ 

Ironwork i5^!34- -- 

Brick and material 7I5I15 -3 

Plastering 21,054 65 

Carpentry 146,607 19 

Painting and glazing -15650 13 

Roofing 23,825 49 

Sundries, labor, material, etc 288,329 71 

Architect and superintendent 43,844 33 

Total cost $1,199,871 91 



ST. LOUIS AND ITS CHARTERS. 

The town of St. Louis was first incorporated on the 9th day of No- 
vember, 1809, by the Court of Common Pleas for the District of St. 
Louis, upon the petition of two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants, under 
authority of an act of the Legislature of the Territory of Louisiana, 
passed June i8th, 1808, entitled "An act concerning towns in this Terri- 
tory." The Judges constituting the Court were Silas Bent, President, 
and Bernard Pratte and Louis Labeaume, Associates. The charter 
granted by the Court was the only one under which the town existed 
until 1822, when it was incorporated as a city. It is to be found in the 
records of the Court in Book A, page 334, in the following words : 

"On petition of sundry inhabitants of the town of St. Louis, praying 
so much of said town as is included in the following hmits to be incor- 
porated, to-wit: Beginning at Antoine Roy's mill on the bank of the 
Mississippi river, thence running sixty arpents west, thence south on said 
line of sixty arpents in the rear until the same comes to the Barriere 
Denoyer, thence due south until it comes to the Sugar Loaf, thence due 
east to the Mississippi, from thence by the Mississippi to the place first 
mentioned. The Court having examined the said petition, and finding 
that the same is signed by two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants residing in 
said town, order the same to be incorporated, and the metes and bounds 
to be surveyed and marked and a plat thereof filed of record in the 
Clerk's oflice." David Delawnay and Wm. C. Carr were appointed 
Commissioners to superintend the first election of five trustees in accord- 
ance with the law. 



OF SAINT LOUIS. 7I 

The next act in reference to incorporation is entitled "An act to incor- 
porate the inhabitants of the town of St. Louis, approved December 9th, 
1822." The limits stated in this act are as follows : Beginning at a point 
in the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river, due east of 
the southern end of a bridge across Mill creek, at the lower end of the 
town of St. Louis : thence due west to a point at which the line of Sev- 
enth street extending southwardly will intersect the same ; thence north- 
wardly along the western side of Seventh street, and continuing in that 
course to a point due west of the northern side of Roy's tower ; thence 
due east to the middle of the main channel of the river Mississippi ; 
thence with the middle of the main channel of the said river to the 
beginning. By this act the town, bounded as above given, was "erected 
into a city" by the name of the city of St. Louis, and the inhabitants 
constituted a body politic and corporate under the name and style of the 
Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of St. Louis. 

An act supplementary to that last mentioned was passed January 15, 
1831, but without any alteration of the boundaries. On the i6th of Jan- 
uary, 1833, an additional act was passed dividing the city into four 
wards. On the 26th of February a new charter was passed by the 
Legislature, which reiterated the boundaries of the act of 1822, but 
contained new and more specific provisions for municipal government. 
On February 8, 1839, ^ "^'^ charter was again promulgated by the 
Legislature, which was much more elaborate than any of the preceding, 
being divided into articles, a formality not previously observed. This 
established the boundaries as follows : Beginning at a point in the mid- 
dle of the main channel of the Mississippi river due east of the mouth 
of Mill creek (so called) ; thence due west to the mouth of said creek ; 
thence up the centre of the main channel of said creek to a point where 
the southern side of Rutgers street, produced, shall intersect the same ; 
thence westwardly along the southern side of said sti-eet to the intersec- 
tion of the same with the western line of Seventh street, produced ; 
thence northwardly along the western side of Seventh street to the 
northern line of Biddle street ; thence eastwardly with the northern line 
of Biddle street to the western line of Broadway, to a point where the 
southern boundary of survey number six hundred and seventy-one, pro- 
duced, shall intersect the same ; thence eastwardly along the southern 
boundary of said survey to the Mississippi river ; thence due east to the 
middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river ; thence down with 
the middle of the main channel of said river to the place of beginning. 

On the 15th of Febi-uary, 1841, an act amendatory to Jthe foregoing 



72 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

again changed the boundaries, as follows : Beginning at a point in the 
middle of the main channel of the river due east of the southeast corner 
of St. George, in St. Louis county : thence due west to the west line of 
Second Carondelet avenue ; thence north with the west line of said 
avenue to the north line of Chouteau avenue ; thence northwardly in a 
direct line to the mouth of Stony creek, above the then existing north 
line of the city; thence due east to the middle of the main channel of 
the Mississippi river, and thence south to the place of beginning. 

On February 8, 1843, an act was approved entitled "An act to reduce 
the law incorporating the city of St. Louis and the several acts amenda- 
tory thereof into one act, and to amend the same." This act did not 
change the city limits. Another act similar in title to that just mentioned 
was approved March 3, 1851, but it left the limits as last quoted. 

Various supplementary and amendatory acts besides those mentioned 
were passed in reference to the city, but the next extension of the limits 
was made by an act specifically for that purpose, which was approved 
December 5, 1855. This act made the line of Keokuk street the south- 
ern boundary of the city to a point six hundred and sixty feet west of 
Grand avenue ; thence northwardly and parallel to the line of Grand or 
Lindell avenue, at a distance of six hundred and sixty feet therefrom, 
until the line intersects the Bellefontaine road ; thence northeast to the 
line dividing townships 45 and 46 north, range 7 east ; thence eastwardly 
with said line and in the same direction to the middle of the main chan- 
nel of the Mississippi river ; thence southwardly with the meanderings 
of said channel to place of beginning. 

In 1866, the Legislature granted another charter for the city of St. 
Louis, which divided the city into ten wards, but left the boundaries 
unchanged. 

In 1867, another charter was obtained which added the suburb of 
Carondelet to the city by extending the southern limits, but this exten- 
sion did not go into effect until the first Tuesday in April, 1870. The 
city proper remained unchanged as to boundaries, and the extension 
authorized received the designation of the "new limits." This charter 
divided the city into twelve wards. It remained unchanged until 1870, 
when an act was passed by the Legislature, entitled "An act to revise 
the charter of the city of St. Louis and to extend the Hmits thereof." 
Notwithstanding its title there was no actual extension of the limits by 
this act, but the provisions of the previous charter in reference to the 
incorporation of Carondelet were re-enacted with a provision that for 
the first five years the rate of taxation in the "new limits" should not 
exceed one-half the rate levied on the old limits. 



OF SAINT LOUIS 



73 



In 1873, a new law extending the city limits, was enacted, but it was 
declared unconstitutional and consequently inoperative. 

The charter approved March 4th, 1870, is therefore the instrument 
under which the municipal government is conducted. Amendments of 
minor importance have been made to that charter since, but the limits 
remain unchanged as also its more important provisions. 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF ST. LOUIS SINCE 181O. 



810 Auguste Chouteau Chaii 

811 Charles Gratiot 

S12 Charles Gratiot 

813 Charles Gratiot 

814 Clement B. Penrose 

815 Elijah Beebe 

816 Elijah Beebe 

817 Elijah Beebe 

818 Thomas F. Riddick 

819 Peter Ferguson 

820 Pierre Chouteau, Sr 

821 Pierre Chouteau, Sr 

S22 Thomas McKnight 

823 William Carr Lane Major. 

824 William Carr Lane 

825 William Carr Lane 

826 William Carr Lane 

827 William Carr Lane 

828 William Carr Lane 

829 Daniel D. Page 

830 Daniel D. Page 

831 Daniel D. Page 

832 Daniel D. Page 

833 *Samuel Merry 

S34 John W. Johnson — 

835 John F. Darby 

836 John F. Darby 

S37 John F. Darby 

838 William Carr Lane 

S39 William Carr Lane 

840 John F. Darby 

S41 John D. Daggett 

842 George Maguire 

843 John M. Wimer 



1S44 Bernard Pratte Mayor. 

1845 Bernard Pratte 

1846 Peter G. Camden 

1S47 Bryan Mullanphy 

i8-^8 John M. Krum... 

1849 James B. Barry 

1850 Luther M. Kennett 

1851 Luther M. Kennett 

1852 Luther M. Kennett 

1853 John How 

1854 John How 

1S55 Washington King 

1856 John How 

1857 John M. Wimer 

1858 Oliver D. Filley 

1859 Oliver D. Filley 

i86o Oliver D. Filley 

1861 Daniel G. Taylor 

1862 Daniel G. Taylor 

1863 Chauncey L Filley 

1864 James S.Thomas 

1865 James S.Thomas 

1866 James S.Thomas 

1867 James S.Thomas 

1868 James S.Thomas 

1869 Nathan Cole 

1870 Nathan Cole 

1871 Joseph Brown 

1872 Joseph Brown 

1873 Joseph Brown 

1874 Joseph Brown 

1875 fArthur B. Barrett 

1875 JJames H. Britton 



* Disqualified in consequence of holding office under the General Government and Jno. W. Johnston elected in 
his stead. 
t Elected on April 6th, inaugurated on the 13th, and died on the 27th of the same month. 
X Elected to fill vacancy caused by death of Barrett, who had served only two weeks. 



l/^3^ 




\t M^t^ummt 



Aisr 



ARGUMENT TO PROVE 



THAT 



SAINT LOUIS 



WILL BE 



THE GREAT CITY OF THE WORLD. 



THE ARGUMENT. 



Great cities grow up in nations as the product of civilization and 
advanced thought. They represent the power of combined activity and 
the purposes of thousands and milhons of the world's people, through 
succeeding generations. They are the centers from which radiate 
material and intellectual improvement, and in their advanced develop- 
ment they become vital organs in the world's government and progress, 
and perform the highest functions of industrial and social life. Where 
natural advantages and human faculties are most effective the}^ exhibit 
their greatest growth and influence. In the grand march of the human 
race, they exercise a function peculiar to themselves, by marking the 
progress of mankind in arts, commerce and civilization, embellishing 
history with its richest pages, and impressing on the mind of the scholar 
and the statesman the profoundest lessons in the rise and fall of nations. 
In all ages they have formed the great centres of industrial, artistic and 
intellectual life, from which mighty outgrowths of civilization have 
expanded, beating down barbaric obstacles with a resistless effort. In 
short, they are the mightiest works of man. And whether we view 
them wrapped in the flames of the conqueror, and surrounded with 
millions of earnest hearts, yielding in despair to the wreck of fortune 
and life at the fading away of expiring glory, or the sinking of a nation 
into oblivion ; or whether we contemplate them in the full vigor of 
prosperity, with steeples piercing the very heavens, with royal palaces, 
gilded halls, and rich displays of wealth and learning, they are the same 
ever wonderful objects of man's creation, ever impressing with pro- 
foundest conviction lessons of human greatness and human glory. 
Even in their decay they have been able to wrestle with all human time 
and resist oblivion. We have only to go with Volney through the Ruins 
of Empires, to trace the climbing path of man, from his first appearance 
on the fields of history to the present day, by the evidences we find 
along his pathway in the iniins of the great cities, the creation of his 
own hands. The lessons of magnitude and durability which great 



8o " THE ARGUMENT. 

cities teach may be more clearl}^ realized in the following eloquent 
passage from a lecture of Louis Kossuth, delivered in New York city. 

"How wonderful ! What a present and what a future yet ! Future? 
Then let me stop at this mysterious word, the veil of unrevealed eternity. 

"The shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and amid 
the bustle of this gigantic bee-hive, there I stood with meditation alone. 

"And the spirit of the immovable past rose before my eyes, unfold- 
ing the picture-rolls of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human 
things. 

"And among their dissolving views there I saw the scorched soil of 
Africa, and upon that soil, Thebes, with its hundred gates, more splen- 
did than the most splendid of all the existing cities of the world — 
Theben, the pride of old Egypt, the first metropolis of arts and sciences, 
and the mysterious cradle of so many doctrines, which still rule man- 
kind in different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source. 

"There I saw Syria, with its hundred cities ; every city a nation, and 
every nation with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, 
the very ruins of which baffle the imagination of man, as they stand 
like mountains of carved rocks in the desert, where, for hundreds of 
miles, not a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant 
back to carry a mountain's weight upon. And yet there they stood, 
those gigantic ruins ;' and as we glance at them with astonishment, 
though we have mastered the mysterious elements of nature, and know 
the combination of levers, and how to catch the lightning, and how to 
command the power of steam and compressed air, and how to write 
with the burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and how 
to dive to the bottom of the ocean, and how to rise up to the sky, cities 
like New York dwindle to the modest proportion of a child's toy, so 
that we are tempted to take the nice little thing up on the nail of our 
thumb, as Micromegas did with the man of wax. 

"Though we know all this, and man}^ things else, still, looking at the 
times of Baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was 
that which could do what neither the puny efforts of our skill, nor the 
ravaging hand of unrelenting time, can undo through thousands of years. 

"And then I saw the dissolving picture of Nineveh, with its ramparts 
now covered with mountains of. sand, where Layard is digging up 
colossal winged bulls, large as a mountain, and yet carved with the 
nicety of a cameo ; and then Babylon, with its beautiful walls ; and 
Jerusalem, with its unequaled temples ; Tyrus, with its countless fleets ; 



THE ARGUMENT. 8l 

Arad, with its wharves ; and Sidon, with its hibyrinth of work-shops 
and factories ; and Ascalon, and Gaza, and Beyrout, and, further oft\ 
PersepoHs, with its world of palaces." 

The first great cities of the world were built by a race of men inferior 
to those who now represent the most advanced civilization, vet there are 
many ruins, superior, both in greatness and mechanical skill, to those 
which belong to the cities of our own day, as found in the marble soli- 
tudes of Palm3a-a and the sand-buried cities of Egypt. But ancient 
grandeur grew out of a system of serf labor controlled by selfish 
despots or a blind priesthood, which compelled a useless display of 
greatness in most public improvements, especially in those growing out 
of religious enthusiasm. In our age, labor is directed more by practical 
wisdom than of old, and is used to create the useful more than the orna- 
mental ; hence we have the Crystal Palace instead of the Pyramids. 

But no matter what age nor what form of religion or civilization has 
produced the great cities, their character and greatness teach their 
lessons all along the highway of time — lessons of the profoundest 
interest. It is not to the past, however, that the present discussion 
belongs, but the inquiry reaches into the future. 

Where will grow up the future great city of the world ? is the question 
now under consideration. Let us examine and, if possible, ascertain 
among what people, in what nation, on what continent the future great 
city of the world is yet to be. 

At the very outset of this inquiry, it is necessary to a clear compre- 
hension of a few underlying facts essential to the production of the 
cities of the past and those now in existence, to note the influence of 
the more important arts and sciences upon the present intellectual and 
industrial interests of civilized men, and, if possible, determine the 
tendency of the world's progress toward the unfolding future. 

It must be true in the case of great cities, as in that of any other 
department of the works of man, that their location and growth are 
directed and controlled by certain fundamental facts and principles, 
which are local and general in their character ; and that, with a 
knowledge and application of those local and fundamental facts and 
general principles, the investigation can be easih' carried into the 
future, and great cities and their locations be pointed out, as well as 
the place where the future great citv of the world will grow up. 
Assuming this to be true, we have onl}' to consider the following fun- 
damental, local facts and general principles, and, by their application 



82 THE ARGUMENT. 

to nature and civilization, determine where the future great city of the 
world is destined to grow up. 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

The following six general principles, two of which have ever been 
all-controlling in the production of great cities, are presented as an 
impregnable basis on which to found an incontestable argument by 
which to demonstrate the location of the great city of the future. The 
third is substantially new and local to America, and must exercise a 
controlling influence on this continent : 

I. It is assumed to be a general principle, founded in nature, that 
the highest civilization, the greatest concentration of wealth and the 
growth of the greatest cities, have been attained 'within an isothermal 
belt or zone of equal temperature, which encircles the earth in the 
north temperate zone. 

II. That all the great cities of the world have grown up near to the 
line of obstructed navifjation in mid-winter. 

III. That human powder is organized to its fullest capacity where the 
productive power of a continent is greatest. 

IV. That nearly all the great cities of the world have been built upon 
rivers. 

V. That the arts and sciences do more to increase population and 
promote the growth of cities in the interior of a country, than upon 
the seaboard or coast lands. 

VI. That to modern civilization, domestic transportation, by water 
and by rail, is more valuable to nations of great territorial extent, than 
ocean navigation. 

THE ARGUMENTS DEDUCED FROM OUR SIX GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

Having laid down these general propositions, most of which are 
essential to the production of a great city anywhere on this globe, let 
us proceed to elucidate the truth and importance of each of them, and 
ascertain, if possible, if they will not, in time, produce upon this conti- 
nent a greater city than has yet grown up in the world. Ma}' we 
not go beyond, and by a more exhaustive elucidation of the subject 
and closer application of the truths and facts, fix the location and deter- 
mine the growth of the great city of the future. 



THE ARGUMENT. ^3 



THE FIRST GENERAL PRINCIPLE ELUCIDATED. 

1. — General Principle : That the highest civilization, the greatest 
^concentration of wealth, and the growth of the greatest cities have been 
attained within an isothermal belt or zone of equal temperature, which 
•encircles the earth in the north temperate zone. 

The existence of an isothermal zone, or belt of equal temperature, 
surrounding the northern hemisphere was first discovered by Humboldt. 
He first called scientific attention to isothermal lines, or lines of equal 
temperature, which encircle the earth in the north temperate zone. 
And minute investigations have established the fact that the human race 
Tiad, since creation's dawn, been moving westward within this belt of 
empire, as if directed or impelled by a kind of instinct, over which the^' 
had no control. This zodiac or zone is a few degrees wide, having for 
its axis a line of equal temperature. "During antiquity this zodiac was 
narrow ; it never expanded beyond the North African shore, nor beyond 
the Pontic Sea, the Danube, and the Rhine. Along this narrow belt 
civilization planted its system, from Oriental Asia to the western 
extremity of Europe, with more or less perfect development. Modern 
times have recently seen it widened to embrace the region of the Baltic 
Sea. In America it starts with its broad front from Cuba to Hudson's 
Bay. As in all previous times, it advances along a line central to these 
extremes, in the densest form, and with the greatest celerity. It 
reveals to the world this shining fact, that along it civilization has 
traveled, as by an inevitable instinct of nature, since creation's dawn. 
From this line has radiated intelligence of mind to the north and to the 
south." It is the zodiac of empire. 

It is a noteworthy observation of Dr. Draper, in his work on the Civil 
War in America, that within a zone a few degrees wide, having for its 
axis the January isothermal line of forty-one degrees, all great men in 
Europe and Asia have appeared. He might have added, with equal 
truth, that within the same zone have existed all those great cities which 
have exerted a powerful influence upon the world's history, as centres 
of civilization and intellectual progress. The same inexorable, but 
subtle, law of climate which makes greatness in the individual unattain- 
able in a temperature hotter or colder than a certain golden mean, 
aftects in like manner, with even more certainty, the development of 
those concentrations of the intellect of man which we find in great 



84 THE ARGUMENT. 

cities. If the temperature is too cold, the sluggish torpor of the intel- 
lectual and physical nature precludes tlie highest development ; if the- 
temperature is too hot, the fiery fickleness of nature which warm 
climates produce in the individual, is typical of the swift and tropical 
growth and sudden and severe decay and decline of cities exposed to 
the same all-powerful influence. Beyond that zone of moderate tem- 
perature, human life resembles more closely that of the animal, as it is 
forced to combat with extremes of cold or to submit to extremes of 
heat ; but within that zone the highest intellectual activity and culture 
are displayed. Nations and cities have arrayed themselves along its- 
pathway, from Pekin, in China, to St. Louis, in America. 

"Through the ages one unceasing purpose runs. 

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the sun." — 

Herein, then, lies the primal law that essentially controls and directs; 
the movements of man upon this globe. 

Within this belt has already been embraced more than three-fourths 
of the world's civilization, and now about 850,000,000 people. It is 
along this belt that the processions of nations, in time, have moved for- 
ward, with reason and order, "in a pre-determined, a solemn march, in 
which all have joined ; ever moving and ever resistlessly advancing^ 
encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events." 

But granting that the human race, with all its freight of commerce, 
its barbarism and civilization, its arms, and arts, has been moving west- 
ward since the beginning of time along this zodiac of empire, through 
pestilence and prosperit}', across seas and over continents, like a mighty 
caravan gone forth to make the circuit of the globe, will not the same 
inevitable cause that wrested human power from the cities and nations 
of the ancients and vested it for a time in the city of the Caesars, and 
thence moved it to the city of London, — will not that wave of human 
power cross the Atlantic Ocean, and, with accumulated strength and 
intelligence, organize itself upon the North American continent, with a 
greater development than has yet been known to mankind.^ 

Must we not assume, that somewhere in time, this movement of the 
human race, in this zodiac of empire, will be arrested in its westward 
career, and man cease his long march around the earth, and seek the 
goal of his ambition on the American continent? Is it not impossible 
for the movement to cross the Pacific Ocean to the inferior races of 
Asia? And is it not in the very nature of things that North America 
is to be the battle-ground where the great problems of the world are to 
be solved, and man attain his full development on the planet? Is 



THE ARGUMENT. 85 

mot this the full and free expression of every enlightened American? 
There is no other conclusion to which civilization is tending. The civil 
conquest of this continent completes the circuit of the globe. It unites 
at the east and the west the isothermal axis that girdles the earth, and 
decides the victory of civilized men over the empire of nature. 

Granting that human power will still move forward until it crosses 
the Atlantic ocean, and that it will be arrested upon the American 
continent, there still arises in the discussion another important question : 
as to whether it will reach and make a lodgment upon the Pacific coast, 
or will it be organized in the central plain of the continent? 

It requires but a simple observation, a simple glance at the productive 
character of the continent, to settle this question. On the eastern 
declivity of the continent, is embraced a little more than one-seventh of 
our territorial possessions. On the western declivity, is embraced almost 
one-third of our domain. The interior plain, or Mississippi basin, 
contains 2,455,000 square miles, infinitely transcending, in productive 
energies, either of the continental slopes or of anv other portion of 
the globe. 

In territorial extent this grand valley surpasses in area all other 
formations of the kind on the continents, and is much greater than the 
combined area of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes. No other continent 
has so great an area of agricultural lands as it, and none so rich in 
natural wealth. Its soil, in richness and extent, is beyond all com- 
parison. Its coal-fields and iron deposits are by far the greatest and 
the richest in the world. "Its river navigation," said Benton, "is the 
most wonderful on the globe, and, since the application of steam power 
to the propulsion of vessels, possesses the essential qualities of open 
navigation. Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all 
there, and without the perils of the sea from storms and enemies. The 
steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds in the Mississippi and its 
tributaries the amplest theatre for the diftusion and display of its power. 
Wonderful river I connected with seas by the head and by the mouth, 
stretching its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific, lying in a vallev 
which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay." 

In addition to the river system, the adaptabilitv of the Mississippi 
Valley for building railroads is supreme over all other lands. Its 
climate is in the highest degree fitted for an unlimited exercise of the 
functions of man, and the commerce afibrded bv its fields and factories 
and foundries will go in the most ample supplv to the markets of everv 
■countr}'. Even when looking but diml}' upon that grand domain, De 



S6 THEARGUMENT. 

Tocqueville said that "the Mississippi Valley is, upon the whole, the 
most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode ;" 
and Charles Sumner said "The Mississippi Valley speaks for itself as 
man cannot speak." "About the noblest work," said Thomas Hughes,, 
"that man can do, is the development of this magnificent continent." 

Since these things are so ; since the wisest of men have testified : 
since God has made the great valley, from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf, 
far the grandest theatre for man's abode upon the planet, and fitted it 
upon each side with great galleries — the Atlantic and Pacific slopes — 
must we not conclude that the centre of human power, in its westward 
movement, will be arrested in the central plain of the continent, where 
is to be found the greatest supply of the productive energies of the 
earth? In short, it must be in the grand valle}^ where the two waves of 
civilization — one rolling in from the Celestial Empire, and the other 
from the land of Alfred and Charlemagne — will meet and commingle 
together in one great swelling tide of humanity, in the land of 
Hiawatha. 

Having briefly considered the first general principle laid down for 
the discussion, and indicated its all-important truth — how the great 
cities of the world have, in time, succeeded each other along the high- 
way of nations, and how the power, wealth and wisdom that once ruled 
in Troy, Athens, Carthage, Rome, Genoa and Venice, is now in the 
still onward, and westward, movement of the great Family of man, 
represented by the city of London, the precursor of the final great city 
of the world, and will in time cross the Atlantic Ocean, and be arrested 
in the central plain of North America, where, in less than one hundred 
years, the great city of the future will grow up, — let us pass to a con- 
sideration of the general proposition : 

n. That all the great cities of the world have grown up near to the 
line of obstructed navigation in mid-winter. 

By the line of obstructed navigation in mid-winter, is meant that line- 
which bounds the limits of the freezing of the navigable rivers so as tO' 
obstruct transportation with ice. Such a line drawn around the earth,, 
would pass by or near Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi' 
rivers. And to the north- of it would be niost of the internal navigation 
of the great basin. It is upon such a line, and near to it north and 
south, that all the great cities have grown up on the gloJie, and wilL 
continue to do so. 



THE ARGUMENT. 87 

The truth of this must be evident, to every person who will consider 
the subject for a moment. 

Climate, everywhere upon the earth, controls vegetation. Every- 
where, in the toilsome pursuit of gain, man is compelled to combat 
extremes of heat and cold, and the severer the conflict, the greater the 
impediment to his success and progress ; hence it is along and adjacent 
to that line midway the extremes of heat and cold, that his successes 
must be greatest, that his achievements must be the most complete. 
Especially must this be true, south of the obstructed line of navigation. 
For it cannot be denied that any impediments to the free exchange 
of commerce, interposed by cold, on land or water, is more expensive 
to the people belonging to the regions where the climate interferes, than 
to those regions of country which are comparatively free from embar- 
rassments interposed by cold weather, and where exist no impediments 
to the ready exchange of commerce. Therefore, the people south of 
such a line must possess advantages for the promotion of prosperity and 
wealth, over those regions where snow and ice and the rigors of the 
climate interpose unavoidable obstacles. Still further, the climatic 
boundary line to human advancement has ever been to the north and 
not to the south. The Infinite Father has set bounds to the north such 
as He has not given to the south, and every race and every nation has 
submissively conformed to the dictation, and made the great battle- 
ground for arms and arts south of the axis of the zodiac of empire, 
instead of north of it ; thus proving the greater advantages for men and 
cities, south of the obstructed line of navigation, than to the north of it. 

But let us pass to our next general principle : 

III. That nearly all the great cities of the world have been built upon 
rivers, whether in the interior or near the ocean — such as Babylon, on 
the Euphrates ; Thebes, on the Nile ; Nineveh, on the Tigris ; Constan- 
tinople, on the Bosphorus ; Rome, on the Tiber ; Paris, on the Seine ; 
London, on the Thames ; New York, on the Hudson ; Cincinnati, on 
the Ohio ; and St. Louis, on the Mississippi ; while Carthage, St. 
Petersburg, and Chicago belong to interior waters, and Palm3a-a and 
the City of Mexico to the interior country. 

That there is an important reason why cities are built upon rivers, 
must be evident to every reflecting man. All commercial transactions 
are based upon transportation — the facihties for the easy and cheap 
exchange and conveyance of products, merchandise and people, to and 



88 ' THE ARGUMENT. 

from commercial centres and countries. Rivers for navigation, and for 
the abundant suppl}' of water for domestic purposes, have afforded 
natural advantages for interior and foreign commerce, that cannot be 
supplied without them. 

Not even the new agency — the railway — transcends in its importance 
for usefulness, the natural advantages afforded to the cities, by the navi- 
gable rivers. 

Railways contribute to give importance to the rivers, by gathering up 
and concentrating the products of the land at given points. Hence the 
advantages afforded to great cities by great rivers will ever remain para- 
mount to localities on the shores of the oceans and lakes ; while upon 
them must ever grow the great cities of the world. 

Passing to our next general principle, it is assumed : 

IV. That the greatest human power will grow up where the product- 
ive power of a continent is greatest. 

The truth of this principle is found in the fact that all man's material 
interests, upon the land, depend upon the material wealth, or productive 
power of the land ; viz : the rich soils, the timber, the metals, the 
domestic navigation, etc., etc., essential to the uses and wants of man. 
This truth is so plain and so great, that it requires no argument for its 
demonstration. 

It is true that this general principle, in its application to the produc- 
tion of great cities, has more force in North America than in an}- other 
portion of the world. 

Neither the cities of Asia, Africa nor Europe, have depended so much, 
for their immediate prosperity and growth, upon the productive energies 
of those continents, as do and will, the cities of North America. 

Here the whole tendency of industrial civilization is to utilize the 
labors and natural resources of the country, in an aggregated form, 
more than in anv other land. And though the results are not yet so 
overshadowing in their appearance, the principle has been vigorousl}' 
applied. With the superior advantages which this land affords, for the 
use of the railway, every succeeding year added to our national life 
must bring still stronger evidence, to prove that in North America, the 
great city is destined to be in the centre of the productive power of the 
country-, where the center of human power must grow up. 

Against the truth and application of this general principle there can 
be no adverse argument ; hence it affords the basis for the strongest 



THE ARGUMENT. 89 

possible argument in favor of the future great city of the world grow- 
ing up in North America. We therefore pass to our next general 
principle. 

V. That the arts and sciences contribute more to increase popula- 
tion and promote the growth of cities upon the interior of a continent, 
than upon the sea-board or coast lands. 

Steam engines, labor-saving machines, books, the value and use of 
metals, government, the enforcement of laws, and other means of self- 
protection — all have tended more to make the people of the interior 
more numerous, powerful and wealth}^, than to concentrate wealth and 
population upon the extended shores of the great waters. 

The truth of this is found in the fact, that man's relations and inter- 
est are with the land and its natural resources. With these the arts and 
sciences have to deal, and where the greatest opportunities combine 
w'ith the greatest resources, the arts and sciences contribute most to the 
welfare of man and to the building up of great cities. 

Our sixth and last fundamental principle is : 

VI. That to modern civilization, domestic transportation by water and 
"by rail, is more valuable to nations of great territorial extent, than ocean 
transportation. 

While this fundamental principle is correct in its general application, it 
is intimately blended and belongs to, and depends upon, the use and 
application of the last tw^o preceding general principles, the arts and 
sciences contributing only to man's happiness and welfare where their 
application can be made in the most practical way. 

Having thus defined the general principles, in nature and in civiliza- 
tion, which produce the great cities of the world, and having laid down 
these principles as a basis upon which to found the argument and deter- 
mine the position of the future great cit}', let us proceed at once to the 
discussion. 

Assuming that the six fundamental principles just laid down are true, 
and that by a proper understanding of them, it is possible to determine 
when and where the future great city of the world is destined to grow 
up on the earth, I shall at the ver}- outset of the discussion make the 
bold declaration that the great cit}' of the future is to grow up in North 
America, and that St. Louis is to be that city. The elaboration of our 
first fundamental principle demonstrates, beyond question, that the centre 



go - THE ARGUMENT. 

of human power, moving westward in the zodiac of empire, must cross- 
the Atlantic ocean and make a lodgment in North America, and that 
where the centre of human power is fixed, the great city must grow up. 

It must grow up near the axis of that great belt of empire, near the 
obstructed line of water navigation in mid-winter ; on the great river 
where climates cannot rudely interpose obstacles to commerce and navi- 
gation. This being true, it is a fact of no little importance, that the 
very axis of the zone of empire — the centre of equilibrium between 
excess of heat and cold — the January isothermal line of forty-one 
degrees — passes nearer to the city of St. Louis than to any other consid- 
erable city on this continent ! Close to that same isothermal line lie 
London, Paris, Rome, Constantinople and Pekin ; north of it lie New 
York, Philadelphia and Chicago, and south of it lies San Francisco. 
Thus favored in climate, and situated in the veiy centre of that belt of 
intellectual activity, beyond which neither great man nor great city has 
yet appeared, St. Louis may with reason be expected to attain the 
highest rank, if other conditions favor. 

That St. Louis is not only situated near to the axis of the belt of 
empire, but also near to the line of unobstructed winter navigation,, 
being, in addition, supremely favored as will be shown by the other 
fundamental principles laid down at the basis of this discussion, is a 
fact beyond all doubt ; and now it only remains to support those prin- 
ciples by local and general facts, to establish the position and certaintv 
of the future great city. Rising, from principles to essential necessities 
for the maintenance of human life, we find that the growth of a city is 
analogous to the growth of a human being ; and that there are certain 
prime necessities for the maintenance of human life, the abundance of 
which stimulates health and the rapid increase of population, and con- 
sequently stimulates the growth of great cities in proportion to the 
cheapness and abundance of the supply. These prime necessities are,, 
food, clothing, and shelter. 

There can be no civilized life without all of these ; and as they are 
the products of labor and skill, where they can be produced in the 
greatest abundance, and used to the greatest advantage, and the most 
extensively, will almost certainly be the place where the centre of popu- 
lation will be fixed on this continent, and where the great city will grow 
up — where our problem will be solved. Added to these prime necessi- 
ties for man's healthful and civilized growth, should be ample facilities 
for the intercommunion of the people, one with another, and for the 
ready exchange of commodities forming foreign and domestic com- 



THE ARGUMENT. gi 

merce. These may be enumerated as good roads, railways, and navi- 
gable waters, with attendant cheap freights. 

That St. Louis occupies a geographical position, central to the pro- 
ductive energies of the continent, there can be no question of doubt. 
In fact no city on the globe is so well favored with the resources neces- 
sary to produce food and the materials out of which clothing and houses 
are made. 

To establish the truth of this statement, we have only to examine, in 
a cursory manner, the facts — their continental importance, as Provi- 
dence has bounteously provided them on every hand, throughout the 
length and breadth of the great valley of the Mississippi. Let us con- 
sider them briefly. 

Leaving the Atlantic seaboard, and coming west of the Appalachian 
chain of mountains, we at once enter the domain of the Mississippi 
Valley, which comprises an area of 2,445,000 square miles, and extends 
through thirty degrees of longitude and twenty-three degrees of latitude. 

The Mississippi Valley embraces, within its vast extent, a variety of 
climates, an area of rich soil, an extent of river navigation, a supply of 
mineral wealth, and a configuration of surface, equaled nowhere else on 
this globe. 

Neither Asia, Africa, Europe, nor South America, can boast of a 
valley so vast in extent, and so bountifully supplied with natural wealth 
and natural advantages, essential to the industrial and commercial pro- 
fjress of man. 

To satisfy the reader of the tinith of these statements, a few general 
facts are submitted : 

RIVERS OF ASIA. 

Yangtse — Length, 3,200 miles; navigable, 900 to 1,500 miles; area 
drained, 740,000 square miles. 

Obi — Length, 2,530 miles; navigable, 900 miles; area drained, 
1,357,000 square miles. 

rivers of AFRICA. 

Nile — Length, 3,600 miles; navigation, unknown; area drained, 
520,000 square miles. 

Niger — Length, 2,500 miles; navigable, 700 miles; area drained,, 
unknown. 

RIVERS OF EUROPE. 

Volga — Length, 2,150 miles; navigable, 1,800 miles; area drained, 
400,000 square miles. 

Danube — Length, 1,700 miles ; navigable, 1,500 miles ; area drained, 
250,000 square miles. 



<g2 ., THE ARGUMENT 



RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

Amazon — Length, 4,000 miles ; navigable, 3,662 miles ; area drained, 
^,000,000 square miles. 

Laplata — Length, 2,550 miles ; navigable, 1,250 miles ; area drained, 
1,250,000 square miles. 

RIVERS OF NORTH AJVIERICA. 

Mississippi — Length, 2,616 miles ; navigable, 2,200 miles ; area 
•^drained, 2,455,350 square miles, including area of the Missouri. 

Missouri — Length, 2,908 miles ; navigable, 2,000 miles ; area drained, 
518,000 square miles. 

The above statement of the length, navigable depth and area drained 
by the ten longest rivers in the world, settles the question of superiorit^' 
in favor of the great river of North America — the Mississippi — and 
decides the question of greatest area between the great basins. 

Although geographical science long since established the fact that the 
Amazon was the king of rivers, modern and minute investigation has 
proven the basin of the Mississippi, as the above figures show, to surpass 
in extent an}- other formation of the kind on the globe. It is true Hum- 
.boldt estimated the area drained by the Amazon to be 2,800,000 square 
miles, but more recent authorities place the number below that of the 
Mississippi basin. Not only do the facts demonstrate the Mississippi 
basin to be larger than that of the Amazon, but the configuration of the 
two parts of the Western Hemisphere is quite different ; that of North 
America presenting three vast interior plains, comprising more than one- 
half of its populable area ; that of South America presenting a configur- 
ation far more mountainous, and devoid of great plains similar to those 
forming the great basin of the Mississippi. 

In the Mississippi Valley, which is still new in its development, there 
are already many large and flourishing cities, each expecting, in the 
future, to be greater than any one of the others. First among these 
.stand Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis and New Orleans — four cities 
-destined at no distant day, to surpass in wealth and population the four 
»cities of the Atlantic seaboard — Boston, New York, Philadelphia and 
Baltimore. Assuming, then, that the future great citv is to be in the 
Mississippi Valley, we are to ascertain which of the four cities it is to be, 
■or whether some new and more prosperous rival will present itself for 
that great achievement. As the great city is to be in the future, we 
jQiust view it as the growth of the well-developed resources of our 



THE ARGUMENT. 93 

country ; and, all things being considered, it is but just to say that, inas- 
much as it will be an organism of human power, it will grow up in or 
near the centre of the productive power of the continent. That Chicago, 
Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans have each many natural advan- 
tages, there can be no question. There is, however, this difference : 
the area of surrounding country, capable of ministering to the wants of 
the people and supplying the trade of a city, is broken, in the case of 
New Orleans, by the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Pontchartrain and by 
regions of swamps. In the case of Chicago, it is diminished one-third 
by Lake Michigan ; while Cincinnati and St. Louis both have around 
them unbroken and uninterrupted areas of rich and productive lands, 
each capable of sustaining a large population. But if it be asked to 
Avhich of these cities belong the greatest advantages, must we not 
answer, it is the one nearest the centre of the productive power of the 
continent, and especially to the natural wealth of the Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi? Most certainly, for there will grow up the human power. 
And is not this centre St. Louis? We have only to appeal to facts to 
establish the superior natural advantages of St. Louis over any other 
city on the continent. 

FOOD . 

But, before we enter upon a discussion of the productive powers of 
the continent, let us look for one moment at the elements of human 
want upon which civilization is founded : and this brings us back to a 
consideration of our auxiliary and essential requisites to our six funda- 
mental facts. Under all circumstances and in every condition of life, 
in any country or clime, the first and greatest necessity of man is food, 
and a civilization and an industry universally founded upon the principle 
"for value received." It is incontrovertibly true that, in that part of 
the country where the most food can be produced and supplied at the 
cheapest rates to the consumers, there will be afforded an essential 
requisite to encourage and sustain a dense population. Then, without 
entering into a detailed investigation of the advantages afibrded to Chi- 
cago, Cincinnati, and New Orleans for obtaining an all-sufiicient supply 
of cheap food, we shall at once assume that St. Louis is central to a 
better and greater food-producing area or country than either one of 
the other three cities, and that no man can disprove the assumption. 

St. Louis is, substantially, the geographical center of this great valley, 
which, as we liave already seen, contains an area of 2,445,000 square 



94 ' THE ARGUMENT. 

miles, and will, in the mature development of the capacity of its soil, 
control at least the products of 1,000,000 square miles. That we may 
infer, approximately, the capacity of the more central portions of this 
valley for food-producing purposes, we call attention to an estimate, 
made by the Agricultural Bureau at Washington, of the cereal prod- 
ucts of the Northwest for the next three decades : 

i '''"■• Bushels. 



18S0. 



1,219,520,000 



1S90 1,951,232,000 

1900 3,121,970,000 

We consume in this countr}' an average of about live bushels of wheat 
to the inhabitant, but, if necessar}-, can get along with something less, 
as we have man}' substitutes, such as corn, r3'e and buckwheat. A low 
■estimate will show that our population will be in — 

^^''"'- ■ Population. 

1880 56,000,000 

1890 77,oo3,coo 

^9°° 100,000,000 

Accordingly, we can use for home consumption alone of wheat in : 

'^''''^^'- Bushels. 

1880 280,000,000 

1890 385,000,000 

1900 500,030,000 

This calculation is made for Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota ; and by taking into account Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian 
Territory and Arkansas, four additional States which naturally con- 
tribute to this argument, we at once swell the amount of food for 
the next three decades to a sufficienc}- to supply hundreds of milHons 
•of human beings, at as cheap rates as good soil and human skill and 
-labor can produce it. 

Nor do these States comprise half of the food-producing area of the 
Valley of the Mississippi. Other large and fertile States, more eastern, 
and southern, and western — Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas and Nebraska — do 
now, and will continue to, contribute largely to the sum total of the food 
produced in the Valley States. And when we consider that less than 
one-lifth of the entire products of the whole country in i860 was 
exported to foreign countries, thus leaving four-fifths for exchange in 
domestic commerce between the States, and that such is the industrial 



THE ARGUMENT. 95 

and commercial tendency of our people to a constant proportional 
increase of our domestic over our foreign exchange, we see an inevita- 
ble tendency in our people to concentrate industrially and numerically 
in the interior of the continent. And when we take into the account 
that not more than eighteen per cent, of the soil of the best States of 
this valley is under cultivation, we are still more amazed at the thought 
of what the future will produce, when the whole shall have been 
brought under a high state of improved culture. Then the food- 
producing capacity of this valley will be ample to supply more people 
than now occupy the entire globe ; and with the superior advantages 
of domestic navigation that St. Louis has over any of the valley cities, 
and the still additional advantages which she will have in railway com- 
munications, and her proximity to rich soils, where is there a people 
who can be supplied with more and cheaper food than here? Not 
only are the superior advantages afforded for the production of an 
abundance of Cheap corn and wheat food, but also for the growth of 
r3^e, oats, barle}', sugar, and all kinds of vegetables and fruits essentially 
necessary for the wants of those who inhabit the land. In addition to 
the food taken direct from the soil, St. Louis is better situated than the 
other three cities for being ampl}- supplied, at the lowest possible rates, 
with the best quality of animal food. Not only is there every advantage 
on all sides to be supplied with animal food from the constantly- 
increasing products of agricultural districts adjacent to the city, but 
in twenty hours' ride by railway we reach the great pastoral region of 
our country, where, in a few years, cattle and sheep will swarm over 
the prairies in infinite numbers, where they will be kept in reserve to 
supply the markets of the constantly-increasing people. Already the 
domestic animals — quadrupeds — are more numerous in civilized life 
than were the wild quadrupeds among the aboriginal savages of this 
country. In the year 1870, taken together, horses, asses and mules, 
oxen, sheep and swine, amounted to 85,703,913, — or more than twice 
the human population of the Union. 

The census returns show the number to be as follows : 

Horses. 7, 145,370 

Mules and Asses 1,125,415 

Milch Cows 8!935:332 

Working Oxen 1,319,271 

Other cattle 13,566,005 

Sheep 28,477,951 

Swine 25,134,569 

Total 85,703,913 



96 -' THE ARGUMENT. 

Considering the great pastoral region which will, before man}' years, 
be brought into greater use, the increase of quadrupeds will, no doubt, 
be greater than that of man : at least for the next fifty 3^ears the increase 
on the pastoral region will exercise a valuable influence in aiding to 
establish good and sufficient markets in the large cities of the Valley 
States, thus concentrating and strengthening the power of the interior 
people, who will find ample food at all times. In every view of the 
subject of food, there seems to be no question as to the advantage St. 
Louis will possess, for an abundance and for cheapness, over the other 
three cities : holding, as she does, the nearest relation to the producer, 
and with better facilities for obtaining supplies. 

Besides the general advantages possessed b}- St. Louis over other 
cities for obtaining food, there is, just across the Mississippi river, and 
stretching up and down its water line in front of St. Louis, the American 
Bottom, estimated to contain 400 square miles, or 256,000 acres. In 
fertility of soil, and strength of productive energies, no equal area of 
land can be found to surpass it in richness. A large portion of this 
tract has been cultivated for more than one hundred years, without any 
indications of a loss of fertility or productive strength. This tract alone 
is sufficient to supply an abundance of vegetable food, of the best qual- 
ity, to a population of more than 5,000,000. An advantage of this kind, 
so easy of access and so reliable to produce, must be regarded as one 
of incalculable value to aid in building up and maintaining the food 
supplies of a great city. 

CLOTHING. 

Next to food, as a prime necessity, is clothing. The principal mate- 
rials out of which to make clothing are wool, cotton, flax and hides. 
Each of these can be produced cheapest and best in and adjacent to the 
food-producing regions, or, at any rate, the wool and the leather. In 
fact, in the final advancement and multiplication of the human species 
upon the planet, for the want of room, cotton will have to be abandoned, 
and only those animals and vegetables cultivated that can serve the 
double purpose of supplying food and clothing, and material for the 
mechanic arts. This will compel cattle and sheep, and wheat and corn, 
to be the principal food. The flesh of the sheep and the cow will 
supply food, and the hides, leather, and the wool, clothing. The grain 
of the corn and the wheat will also form food, while the stalk will enter 
into many uses in art. The hog will finally be compelleil to give up the 



T H E A R G U M E N T . 97 

conflict of life ; his mission will be fulfilled, and man will require a 
more refined food for his more refined organization. Fish will not be in 
the way of man in his higher and more multitudinous walk upon the 
earth, and, consequently, will continue to supply a valuable portion of 
his food. Cotton will, ere long, be driven to an extreme southern coast, 
and, finally, gain a strong foothold in Central America and other more 
extreme southern countries, and, at last, yield to superior demands. 
But, to return : St. Louis, on account of the large area of rich, and, in 
most part, cheap lands surrounding her in every direction, has equal, if 
not better advantages for being supplied with ample materials for good 
and cheap clothing, than an}^ other city on the continent ; and, with 
superior advantages, as we shall show after awhile, for the manufacture 
of the materials into clothing, she will stand first in facilities to supply 
food and clothing to her ever-increasing people. 

But more especially must we look to wool as the most valuable mate- 
rial out of which the greater portion of the clothing worn by the 
American people, is to be made. And it is not only a gratifying, but 
a crreat fact, to know that in less than three hundred miles distant from 
St. Louis, the finest wool in the world has been raised, for more than 
twenty-five years. The late Mr. Mark Cockrill, of Nashville, Tennes- 
see, so celebrated for his immense flock of fine sheep, had the honor of 
raising the finest wool known in the world, and took the first premium 
for fine wool at the World's Fair at London, in 185 1. 

SHELTER. 

Next to food and clothing, as a prime necessity for civilized men, is 
shelter: comfortable and commodious houses in which to live. Without 
these there can be no advancement made in society and civilization, as 
seen contrasting the condition of the ancient Greeks and Britons, with 
that of the civilized people of to-day. 

The materials out of which most of the houses are made, in America, 
are brick, stone and wood. In the cities, brick and stone are the prin- 
cipal materials used. All these materials are to be found, in inexhaust- 
ible quantities, in every possible direction from St. Louis, for more than 
three hundred miles distant. It is true Chicago possesses an advantage 
over St. Louis for an abundant supply of cheap pine lumber. But when 
we consider that the best materials out of whicli to make good houses 
are stone and brick, and that all the better class and more substantial 
buildings in the great cities are made of these materials, and that no city 
7 



98 THE ARGUMENT. 

on the continent is so well favored with them as St. Louis, then the 
mere question of pine lumber, or at any rate of the slight difference m 
price, affords no advantage for building material to Chicago over St. 
Louis. Even the new and best buildings of Chicago are made of stone 
and brick, brought from distant places, while St. Louis stands on an 
immense foundation of good limestone, from which thousands of perch 
are quarried annually, and worked into first-class buildings. Besides, 
within fifty and one hundred miles from the city, in the south-eastern 
part of the State, are inexhaustible beds of choice qualities of as fine 
building stone as the continent afibrds, such as the red and grey granite, 
choice marbles of various colors, besides a great variety of other valua- 
ble qualities of soft and hard stones. Also extensive forests of the 
most valuable timber, suited for the mechanic arts and for building 
material, are to be found in the south-eastern portion of the State, one 
and two hundred miles from St. Louis. Brick, first-class quality, are 
made in various parts of the city, and supply the demand for building 
purposes. Nor can any of these supplies be exhausted for ages to 
come. Stone and wood are found in abundance in all parts of the 
Valley States wherewith to supply the farmer with cheap building 
materials. 



Thus we have seen that the three essential requisites — food, clothing 
and shelter — necessary to man's wants and the purposes of civilization, 
can be supplied in abundance and cheapness to St. Louis with greater 
advantages than to any other city belonging to the Valley States, and 
these must render her the greatest market and the best depot for such 
materials that the continent afibrds. 

Passing, then, from these essential requisites, let us take up another 
line of discussion that bears more directly upon the future development 
of American commerce and American civilization. I refer to the pro- 
ductive power of the continent, which is the basis of our physical and 
material life. In what does the productive power of the continent 
consist? I answer, it consists in the rich soils suited to agricultural 
purposes, the coal-fields, the mineral deposits, the valuable forests, the 
water-powers, the domestic navigation, o'erspread with a temperate and 
healthful climate. 



THE ARGUMENT. 99- 

These comprise the productive powers of the continent, and these are 
the materials and the elements that form the basis and support of 
mighty cities and empires. And with us of the Mississippi Valley they 
are more abundant than on any other portion of the globe, and unless 
disturbed by some unforeseen calamity of unparalleled character, this 
people will bring them all into requisition, until they have builded 
mightier than an}^ people of ancient or modern times. No land is so 
great in its productive powers, and no people possess as great possi- 
bilities. Still the whole is not known. Although the largest coal and 
iron deposits of the continent are already known, the geology of the 
entire extent of our domain is so imperfectly known that there still 
remain undisturbed in many of the Territories, and even in some of the 
States, valuable deposits of these two substances, which, ere long, will 
be unearthed and made subservient to the wants of our people. 

But let us tell of what we know. Beginning with the soils of the 
country, it is well understood by those acquainted with its surface, that 
the largest and richest body of soil, best suited for corn, wheat, oats, 
rye and hay-growing is spread over the Valley States. In fact, no 
country in the world has so large an area of rich land as belongs to the 
States of the Mississippi Valley. In capacity for producing the various 
products in the department of agriculture, it has already been referred 
to in the discussion of the subject of food, and will require no further 
consideration. 

Next to the corn-fields above come the coal-fields below, and the iron 
deposits. These are the materials upon which modern and more 
advanced civilization is founded, more than upon any other substances 
the arts have brought into use. Says Professor Tyler : 

"The two important mineral substances, coal and iron, have, when 
made available, afl:brded a permanent basis of commercial and manu- 
facturing prosperity. Looking at the position of some of the great 
depositories of coal and iron, one perceives that upon them the most 
flourishing population is concentrated — the most powerful and magnifi- 
. cent nations of the earth are established. If these two apparently 
coarse and unattractive substances have not directly caused that high 
eminence to which some of these countries have attained, they at least 
have had a large share in contributing to it." 

M. Aug. Vischers also says, that "coal is now the indispensable 
aliment of industry ; it is a primary material, engendering force, giving 
a power superior to that which natural agents, such as water, air, etc., 
procure. It is to industry what ox3^gen is to the lungs, water to the 
plants, nourishment to the animal. It is to coal we owe steam and gas." 



lOO TfiE argump:nt. 

Whoever will look into the development of commerce and civiliza- 
tion during the greater part of this centur3^ will find that coal and iron 
have given them their cast and development in Europe and America, 
Nor have either of these attained their highest use. On examination. 
we find that St. Louis is far better supplied than Chicago, Cincinnati, 
or New Orleans, with coal and iron; in fact, she stands in a central 
position to the greatest coal-fields known on the globe. Surrounded on 
the one side by the inexhaustible coal-beds of Illinois, and on the other 
by the larger ones of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas, who can doubt her 
advantages in the use of the most important substance for the next two 
thousand years? On fne one side we have Illinois, with her 30,000 
square miles of coal, which is estimated by Prof. Rodgers to amount to 
1,227,500,000,000 tons, which is much greater than the deposits in 
Pennsylvania — they amounting, according to the same authority, to 
316,400,000,000 tons. On the other side, we have Missouri, with more 
than 26,887 square miles, amounting to more than 130,000,000,000 
tons. Iowa has her 24,000 square miles of coal ; Kansas, 12,000 square 
miles; Arkansas, 12,000 square miles, and the Indian Territory, 10,000 
square miles. Nearly all the other States are likewise bountifully sup- 
plied, but these figures are sufficient to show the position of St. Louis 
to the greatest coal deposits in the world. We can onl}^ approximate to 
the value of these resources by contrast. It is the available use of 
these two substances that has made England — a little island of the sea, 
not so extensive as the State of Iowa — the great heart of the world's 
civilization and commerce. She, with her 144,000,000,000 tons, or 
12,000 square miles, of coal, with its greater development and use, 
reckons her wealth, in substantial value, at $100,000,000,000, while 
our nation, with our 3,740,000,000,000 tons, or 500,000 square miles, of 
less developed and not so well used coal, and more than twenty-five 
times as large, is only reckoned to be worth $25,245,400,000, with an 
annual increase of $921,700,000. It is true our nation is only in its 
mfancy ; but these facts and the contrast teach us how mighty we can 
be, if we do but use these apparently coarse and unattractive sub- 
stances, coal and iron, as the best wisdom and skill will enable. We 
possess thirty-four times the quantity of coal and iron possessed by 
England, and perhaps double as much as that possessed by all other 
portions of the earth besides. These resources are availably located ; 
thev are in proximity to the widest plains and the richest soils known to 
man. They are developed by ocean-like lakes and magnificent rivers, 
and are, or will be, traversed by railroads from ocean to ocean. Their 



THE ARGUMENT 



lOI 



value is incalculable, their extent boundless, and their riches unequaled. 
They are mines of wealth, more \'aluable than gold, and sufficientl}' 
distributed over this great valley to supply well-regulated labor to 
400,000,000 producers and consumers. Adjacent to our coal-tields are 
our mountains of iron, of a superior quality, and in quantity inexhaust- 
ible. Thus is St. Louis favored with coal and iron in such endless sup- 
plies as to always render their cost dependent simply upon the labor of 
mining them from exhaustless deposits. 

The rich deposits of precious metals which belong to the great moun- 
tain system of our continent, being on the west side of the Valley, do 
already, and will necessarily yet more, contribute to building up the 
interior of the country rather than either coast region ; and though this 
interest never can be so valuable as that of coal and iron, it is of 
immense value and importance in its bearing upon the subject under 
discussion. Already the account has been made large, as the t'oUow- 
ing table shows, but not the half has been taken from those rich and 
extended mines : 

GROWTH OF COINAGE OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1793 TO 1S67. 



YEARS. 


GOLD. 


SILVER. 


COPPER. 

$79,390 82 


TOTAL. 


1793101800, 8 years,.... 


$1,014,290 00 


$1,440,454 75 


$2,534,135 57 


1801 to iSio, 10 " 


3.250.742 50 


3.569.165 25 


i.Si-246 39 


6,971,154 14 


iSii to 1820, 10 '' 


3,166,510 00 


5,970,810 95 


i9i>i.sS 57 


9,328,479 52 


1821 to 1830, 10 " .... 


1,903,092 50 


16,781,046 95 


151,412 20 


18,835,551 65 


183 1 to 1^40, 10 " 


18,791,862 00 


27.199779 00 


342,322 21 


46,333 963 21 


1S41 to 1850, 10 " 


89-.S43>328oo 


22,226,755 00 


3S0 670 S3 


112 050,753 83 


1S51 to i860, 93ii " 


470,838,18098 


48,087,763 13 


1,249,612 53 


520,175,556 64 


1S61 to 1867, 7 " .... 


296,967,464 63 


12,638,732 II 


4.869,350 00 


314,475,546 74 


Total, 74 years 


$885,375,470 61 


$137,914,587 14 


$7,415,16355 


$1,030,705,141 30 



Valuable forests of the best timbers used in mechanical industry are 
to be found in the southeastern part of the State, and will in due time 
furnish material for agricultural implements, furniture, and the various 
uses to which timber is applied. Water powers, not surpassed in any 
part of New England, are to be found in many parts of the southern 
half of the State, and when properly improved will contribute largely 
to the commercial interests of St. Louis. 

Not only is St. Louis situated centrally to the productive powers of 
the Mississippi Valley, and in such a manner as to command them to 
her markets, with greater facilities and advantages than any other city 



I02 THE ARGUMENT. 

on the continent, but she is also centrally situated in this great system of 
domestic navigation, and cannot fail to be, in all the future, the most 
important city and depot identified with its interests. In the nature 
of river navigation, a smaller class of boats is required for the upper 
waters than those which can be economically used in deeper streams, 
and hence arises a necessity for transfer, at some point, from up-river 
boats to those of greater tonnage. At that point of transfer, business 
must arise sufficient of itself to sustain a considerable city. The fact 
that St. Louis is this natural point of transfer between the upper waters 
of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois, and the great channel thence 
to the Gulf, is not to be overlooked in estimating its natural advantages. 
To the domestic navigation we add the railway system of the Valley 
States, which will in a few years more comprise more than 100,000 
miles ; and, by reference to the map illustrating this new inland agency 
for the easy exchange of products and people, we behold at a glance a 
most wonderful system traversing all parts of these States. In the 
rapid construction of these lines of communication, St. Louis is fast 
becoming the greatest railway centre on the continent, as well as in the 
world, and, with her advantages for domestic navigation, she is soon to 
be provided with the best commercial facilities of any city on the globe. 
To her 20,000 miles of river navigation will be added, in less than fif- 
teen years, a continental system of railway communication ; and with 
all these constantlv bearingr an ever-increasinjj commerce to her markets, 
who cannot foresee her destiny among the cities of the world? These 
thousands of miles of railway can be built the cheapest of any extended 
S3'stem in the world, as they are unobstructed by mountain ranges ; they 
will also be the straightest, shortest, and best routes from point to point, 
for the same reason. Granting that she will become the centre of the 
greatest railway communication and of river navigation in the country, 
we must take into the account the question of freights, as an item of 
interest which will bear directly upon the subject of the growth of all 
American cities. Cheap freights will have a direct and important bear- 
ing upon the matter of distributing food and raiment to the people of 
the Valley States,, and also of giving to their products the advantages 
of the best market. To settle this question in favor of St. Louis, 
involves but two points necessary to be considered : the first, the uni- 
versal competition constantly existing between the various rival railroads 
of the Valley States, which will, of necessit}-, make the freights to St. 
Louis as cheap as to an}- other cit}' ; the second point is, that St. Louis 
stands in the midst of the greatest producing and consuming region of 



THE ARGUMENT. IO3 

the country, and in this she cannot fail to have the advantage over any 
rival city that may aspire to empire in the republic or in the w^orld. 
Situated, then, as she is, in the very heart of the productive powers of 
the countr}^ and destined, at a very early date, to be connected by 
railway and by water, in the most advantageous way, with every city 
and harbor on our sea coast, and with every inland city and productive 
region where industry and wealth can find opportunity, we are led to 
consider her future as a commercial and manufacturing city, and her 
advantages to become a distributing point for the future millions of the 
industrious and intelligent of our race who are yet to inhabit this conti- 
nent, under one flag and one language. 



POPULATION. 

Having considered the material resources of the great Valley, and 
the relation they bear to St. Louis, let us now consider the question 
of population — its westward movement and its future growth upon the 
continent. 

The subject of the growth and distribution of the population of a 
country is one of the most important and interesting subjects which is 
brought under the discussions of statistical science. It not only 
involves a consideration of the old facts of ethnological science, but the 
new facts which the influence of isothermal lines, or fines of equal 
temperature, demonstrate to be controlling in governing and directing 
mankind on the continents. 

With us in America, with our extended domain, varied climate and 
favorable topography, the subject will ever be a source of fruitful inves- 
tigation. Heretofore, the movement of population in North America 
has been from east to west, in conformity with the general law of 
human migration. There is still another movement to which people 
conform as they grow populous. This is a movement at right angles 
north and south from the axis, or line of equal temperature, of the 
zodiac of empire. Having reached the Pacific coast and completed the 
circuit of the globe, our people will henceforth be governed more by the 
second movement than by the first. They will struggle to condense and 
fortify the centre, in obedience to the active and passive principles of sup- 
ply and demand, as they constantly yield to this second movement north 
and south to exchange their products between zones. The first move- 
ment of man on the earth is the movement of population from the east 



I04 



T H p: a r g u m p: n t 



to the west. It is the movement of exploration, conqviest and domin- 
ion. Under the influence of this movement, man bridges the rivers, 
scales the mountains, and disputes with the red man and the buftalo the 
empire over nature. 

The movement north and south at right angles to the axis of the 
zodiac of empire, is the movement that produces power, civilization, 
wealth and refinement. Up to the year 1840, in the progress whereby 
twenty-six States and four Territories were established and peopled, a 
solid strip of twenty-five miles in depth, and reaching from Canada to 
the Gulf of Mexico, was added annuall}- along the frontier of the Union. 
Since 1840, the centre of population has moved westward in the following 
order as indicated by the figures below : 



1840 
i8so 

i860 
1870 





LAT. 




39 


deg. 


02 


1 
m. 


3« 


li 


59 


" 


39 


'• 


03 


•' 


39 




15 





80 det 

81 •'' 

82 " 

83 " 



APPROXIMATE DESCRIPTION. 



18 m.|22 miles south of Clarksbur 
90 



50 
39 



^ W. Va. 

25 miles S. E. of Parkersburg, W. Va. 
20 miles south of Chillicothe, Ohio. 
5 mileswest of Ilillsboro, Ohio, or 48 
miles east by north of Cincinnati. 



The above calculation is deduced from those of Professor Hilgard, of 
the Coast Survey Department, and may be accepted as correct. It 
shows that the centre of population moved westward at the rate of fifty- 
five, eighty-two and forty-six miles, respectively, during the three past 
decades. x\t this rate of advancement. Professor Hilgard assumes that 
in the year 2000, the centre of population, in its westward movement, 
"will still be lingering in Illinois." This might possibly be true if there 
was no Pacific Ocean, and a continent existed instead, with favorable 
advantages for human abode and the growth of civilization. This not 
being the case, the Professor's assumption cannot be supported b}^ any 
existing or inferential evidence. 

To assume his statement to be correct, we must assume that the 
pioneer army of the American people will move on, west -of San Fran- 
cisco, in regular order, as heretofore, until the year 2000, thus enabling 
the centre of population, in the meantime, to follow on with slow-paced 
march. This being utterly out of the question, we can assure Professor 
Hilgard that the centre of population on this continent, in its western 
movement, will reach the Mississippi River much sooner than the time 
he has fixed for it — yes, in less than half the time. But w^e must not 
lose sight of the fact, while considering this subject, that the movement 



THE ARGUMENT 



105 



of the centre of population will be arrested — that it will make a lodg- 
ment somewhere in the grand Valley of the Mississippi. It must do so ; 
and it is safe to assume that the centre of population will never go west 
of the Mississippi River; in no event will it pass beyond the State of 
Misssouri. In evidence of this we have only to look at a map of our 
country to ascertain where the dense population will grow up on our 
soil. Whoever examines the map must conclude that the most popu- 
lous part of North America will be that portion lying between the Ohio 
and Mississippi rivers, including the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Michigan and Wisconsin. It is reasonable to assume, from the charac- 
ter of their resources, that those States, in time, will contain about one- 
eighth of the population of the entire country. Missouri can and 
will sustain a greater number of human beings than either one of those 
States, but the adjacent States west of the Mississippi River will not 
attain near so dense a population. The pastoral and mountainous 
regions of our domain will never support a very dense population, and 
when we consider that the more important productive energies of the 
country are along and adjacent to our internal river system, we must 
conclude that there is the place for the centre of human power on the 
continent, and that it can never be removed from those sources and 
advantages, so favorable to man's uses and interests. Not only so, but 
even now the growth of population is more rapid in those States of the 
West, where the natural resources are the greatest, as the following 
table will show : 

ANALYSIS OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 
According to the Follo-viiig Geographical Classijicatioii of the States and Territories. 



NORTH ATLANTIC STATES. 



STATES. 


1820. 


1830. 

399.455 
269,328 
280,652 
610,408 
97.199 
297.675 

1.954.717 


1840. 

.501,793 
284-574 
291,848 

737.699 
108,830 

309,978 
2,234,722 


1850. 


i860. 


1870. 


Maine 

New Hampshire. 

Vermont 

Massachusetts.... 

Rhode Island 

Connecticut 


298,269 
244-022 
235.749 
523-159 
83,015 
275,102 


.583.169 
317.976 
314,120 

994.514 
147.545 
370,792 


628,279 
326,073 
315,098 
1,231,066 
174,620 
460,147 

3.135,283 


626,915 

318,30a 
330.551 
1,457-351 
217-3.53 
537.454 




1,659,316 


2,728,116 


3,487,924 



Per cent, of increase for each decade: 1820-30, 14. So; 1830-40, 1.432; 1840-50, 22.08; 
1850-60, 14.96; 1860.70, 11.56. 



io6 



THE ARGUMENT 



ANALYSIS OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CENTRAL ATLANTIC STATES. 



STATES. 


1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 


i860. 


1870. 


New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania. ... 


1,372,111 

277,426 

1,049,507 

72,749 
407,350 

33,039 
1,005,129 


1,918,608 

320,823 

1,348,233 

76,748 

447,040 

39,834 

1,211,405 


2,428,921 
373,306 

1,724,033 

78,085 

470,019 

43,712 

1,239,797 


3,097,394 
489,555 

2,311,780 

91,532 

583,834 

1,421,661 

51,687 


3,880,735 
672,035 

2,906,215 
112,216 
687,049 

1,596,318 
75,088 


4,382,757 
906,096 

3,521,791 
125,015 




780,894 


Distr't Columbia 
Virginia&W.Va. 


1,667,177 
131,700 




4,217,311 


5,362,691 


6,357,873 


8,046,6^9 


9,932,568 


11,515,430 



Percent, of increase for each decade: 1820-30, 27.13; 1830-40, 18.67; 1840-50, 26.56; 
1850-60, 23.42 ; 1860-70, 15.94. 



SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES. 



STATES. 


1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 

869,039 

668,507 

906,185 

87,445 


1S60. 


1870. 


North Carolina. 
South Carolina . 

Georgia 

Florida 


638,829 
502,741 
340,983 


737,987 

581,185 

516,823 

34,730 


753,419 
594,398 
691,392 

54,477 


992,622 

703,708 

1,057,283 

140,424 


1,071,606 

705,606 

1,184,109 

187,748 




1,482,552 


1,870,725 


2,093,686 


2,531,176 


2,894,040 


3,148,824 



Per cent, of increase for each decade : i820-'30, 26.18; 1830-40, 11.92 ; 1840-50, 20.90; 
iS50-'6o, 18.21; 1860-70, 8. 80. 





1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 


i860. 


1870. 


Totals. 


7,359,180 


9,188,133 


10,686,281 


13,305,941 


15,961,891 


18,152,180 



Total per cent, of increase for each decade: 1820-30, 24.S5 ; i830-'40, 16.30; 1840-50, 
:20.03; i86o-'7o, 13.32. 

LOCATION OF POPULATION. 











Population 




Population 






Whole 


Population 


Per cent. 


of 


Per cent. 


of the 


Per cent. 


Year. 




of 


of 


Miss. Valley 


of 


Upper Miss. 


of 




Population. 


Atlantic Slope. 


Whole. 


and 


Whole. 


Whole, 










Pacific States. 




Valley States. 




1820 


9.639,190 


7,359,180 


76.66?/ 


2,249,418 


23-33^3 


1,860,107 


19.30 


1830 


12,866,020 


9,188,133 


71.16?^ 


3,712,457 


28.8333 


3,010,736 


23-70 


1840 


17.069,453 


10,686,281 


62. s8 


6,392,684 


37 -.SO 


5,058,154 


29.62'.^ 


i8so 


23,191,876 


13,305,941 


57-12,1, 


9,937,622 


42.87,', 


7,598,614 


32.75 


1S60 


31,443,321 


15,961,891 


.50.50 


15,595,430 


49-50 


11,792,814 


37-50 


1870 


38,549,987 


18,1=52,824 


47.10 


20,397,807 


52.90 


16,028,291 


41.60 



THE ARGUMENT, 



107 



ANALYSIS OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

( Continued. ) 

PROBABLE FUTURE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. - 



Year. 


Whole 
Population. 


Population 

of 

Atlantic Slope. 


Per cent. 

of 
Whole. 


Population 

of 

Miss- Valley 

and 
Pacific States. 


Per cent. 

of 
Whole. 


Population 

of the 

Upper Miss. 

Valley States. 


Per cent 

of 
Whole. 


1880 
1890 
1900 
I9I0 


50,885,983 

67,169,497 

88,663,736 

107,036,130 


20,990,470 
23,602,248 
26,044,873 
26,153.490 


41.25 
35-25 
29-37>2 
23-50 


29,895,513 
43,567,249 
62,618,863 
81,153.490 


58.75 
64-75 
70.62 1 3 
76.50 


23.407.552 
33,920,596 

48,765,055 
63.579.461 


46 

50-50 

55 

59-40 



Of this entire population, there is not an average of fourteen to the 
square mile of our vast domain, exclusive of Alaska. 



MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATES. 



1820. 



Ohio 

Michigan . . 
Kentucky. . 
Indiana ... 

Illinois 

Iowa 

Wisconsin - 
Tennessee. 
Missouri .. 
Arkansas... 
Minnesota. 

Kansas 

Nebraska.. 



581,295 

8,765 

.=i64.i35 

147,178 

55.161 



422,761 
66,557 
14.255 



1830. 



937.903 

31.693 

687,917 

343.031 
157.445 



681,904 

140,455 
.30,388 



1840. 



1.519.467 
212,267 
779,828 
685,866 
476,183 

43. "2 

30,945 
829,210 
383.702 

97.574 



1850. 



1,980,329 

397.654 
982,405 
988,416 
851,470 
192,214 

305,391 
1,002,717 

682,044 

- 209,897 

6,077 



1,860,107 i 3,010,736 I 5,058,154 I 7,598,614 



i860. 



2,339.5" 
749.113 

1,155,684 

1,350428 

1,711,951 

674,913 

775.881 

1,109 801 

1,182.012 

435.4.50 

172,023 

107.209 

28,841 



11,792,841 



1870. 



2,665,151 
1,184,050 
1,321,011 
1,680,637 

2.539,891 

1,191,792 

1,054,670 

1,258520 

1,721,295 

484,167 

4.39.706 

364.398 

1 22, 99 i^ 



16,028,291 



Per cent, of increase for each decade: 1820-30, 61.86; 1830-40, 68.00; 1840-50, 50.20; 
1850-60, 55.20; 1860-70, 37.61. 



GULF STATES. 



STATES. 


1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 


i860. 


1870. 




127,901 

75-448 
152,923 


209.527 
136,621 

215.739 


590,756 
375.651 
324.411 


771.623 
606,526 
517.662 
212,592 


964,201 

791.305 
708,002 
604,215 


996,992 


Mississippi 

Louisiana 


827,822 
726,915 


Texas 


812,996 












365.272 


661,887 


[ 

1.290,818 ! 


2,108,503 


3,067,725 


3-364.825 



Total per cent, of increase for each decade 
^>3"35- '850-60,45.50; 1860-70,9.68. 



1820-30, 85.63; 1830-40, 95-43- 1S40-50, 



io8 



THE ARGUMENT 



ANALYSIS OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

{Continued.^ 





1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 
9,937,622 


i860. 

15,595,403 


1870. 




2,249,418 


3,712,457 


6,392,684 


20,397,807 







Total per cent, of increase for each decade: 1820-30, 65.04; 1830-40, 72.19; 1840-50, 
55.44; 1850-60,56.93; 1860-70,30.79. 



PACIFIC STATES AND TERRITORIES. 



STATES. 


1820. 


1830. 


1S40. 


1S50. 


i860. 


1S70. 










92,597 

13,294 
124,614 


379,994 

6,857 

52,465 

295,577 


560,247 










42,491 










90,923 


Territories 


.33,039 


39,834 
39,834 


43,712 


31 ',030 




33,039 


43,712 


230,505 


734,893 


1,004,691 



Per cent, of increase for each decade : 1850-60, 218.82 ; 1860-70, 36.71. 

It will be seen that in 1820 the population of the Atlantic slope was 
76 f^^^ per cent, of the whole, leaving 23 ^^ to the Mississippi Valley. By 
the census returns of 1870, which comprise a growth of fifty 3'ears, the 
Atlantic slope has 47 ;^° per cent., and the Mississippi and the country 
west of it 52 9°^ per cent, of the whole population of the country. 
Assuming that the past furnishes a correct basis for estimating the 
future growth of our population, it wall require but forty years more — 
or from 1870 to 1910 — to reverse the relative proportion of the whole 
population of the country, thus giving to the Valley States 76/^°^ per 
cent., and the iVtlantic slope 23 ^°^ per cent of the whole population. 

But let us pursue the inquiry a litde further, and, if possible, ascer- 
tain what the future growth of our population is likely to be. 

We have the same temperate cHmate, in the central and most fertile 
portion of the Mississippi Valley, as that of China; and, with superior 
resources, it is not unreasonable to assume that a population as numer- 
ous as that of China can easily find subsistence in this Valley. That 
great Empire proper has an area of 1,297,999 square miles; the Mis- 
sissippi Valley has an area 2,455,000, which almost doubles the area of 
the Celestial Empire. The most populous portion of China has an 
average of 850 inhabitants to the square mile ; its entire population ave- 
rages 268 to the square mile. An average of 268 to the square mile 



THE ARGUMENT. IO9 

would give the Mississippi Valley a population of about 650,000,000. 
Dividing the whole country into five equal parts, there will be found 
in the Valley of the Mississippi three parts, and the two slopes will con- 
tain one part each. This will give to each slope about 220,000,000, 
and to the present area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, 
about 1,190,000,000 inhabitants — almost equal to the entire popula- 
tion of the earth at the present time. But long before we shall reach 
this number, our Constitution will over-arch the entire continent, by 
which our numbers will be increased at least one-third more than our 
present area would contain. "We double our numbers once in every 
twenty-five years, and must continue to do so until the action of the 
prolific principle in man shall be checked by the same cause which 
checks it in every race of animals — the stint of food. This cannot 
happen with us until ever}^ acre of our generous soil shall be put into 
requisition" — until the product of more than 3,000,000,000 of acres 
shall be insufficient to fill the mouths which feed upon them. If we 
double our numbers every twenty-five years, we shall have a population 
in a century and a quarter of 1,248,000,000, or more than the present 
population of the globe. A century is but a point in the age of a 
nation, the life of an individual often spans it ; and the child, is now born 
that will see this nation with a population of more than 600,000,000. 
400,000,000 will reside in the Great Valley, 70,000,000 on the 
Atlantic slope, and 130,000,000 on the high table lands of the West 
and the Pacific slope. 

Then it must be evident that somewhere in this great valley, central 
to its 600,000,000 inhabitants and central to the productive energies of 
the continent, must grow up the future great city of the world. 

But let us go a little deeper into the inquiry. Having pointed out the 
advantages which nature, by an inscrutable wisdom, has organized, 
with sufficient strength to insure, under a well-directed civilization, the 
production on our continent of the future great city of the world, it is a 
part of the argument to point out some of the essential wants and con- 
ditions which must control the use of products in civilized life, in order 
to make them subserve the highest use in supplying the wants of man. 

The first essential wants of any productive people are markets whereat 
to dispose of their surplus products, mechanical or agricultural, at 
profitable prices. Markets are a want of population in all lands. 
Mr. Seaman says, in the first series of his valuable work on the progress 
of nations, that "population alone adds value to lands and property of 
every kind, and is therefore one of the principal sources and causes of 



no - THE ARGUMENT. 



wealth." And why is it so? Simply because population creates a 
market by causing a demand for property and products ; by enhancing 
the price and exchangeable value of the products of the toiler. Popu- 
lation thus creates markets, and markets operate to enhance prices and 
to increase wealth, industry and production. Markets are, therefore, 
among the principal causes and sources of value, and of wealth and 
stimulants of industry. The farmer, mechanic, miner and manufacturer 
are all beneficial to each other, for the reason that each wants the 
products of every other in exchange for his own, and thus each creates 
a market for the products of all the others, and thereby enhances prices 
and stimulates their industry. Hence the advantage to the farmer of 
increasing mechanical, manufacturing and mining industry, as far as 
practicable, in his own country, in order to create a market for his 
products and to encourage domestic commerce. 

Agricultural products alone cannot furnish the materials of an active 
commerce, and two nations almost exclusively agricultural have seldom 
much intercourse with each other. Tyre, Carthage and Athens, in 
ancient, and Venice, Florence, Genoa and Amsterdam, in modern 
times, were the greatest of commercial cities at their respective eras, as 
Great Britain is now, because they were also in advance of all other 
nations in the mechanic arts and manufactures, and their commerce was 
based on their mechanical and manufacturing industry, which furnished 
the principal subject-matter for making exchanges and carrying on 
commerce with foreign nations. Here it is that the people of this great 
Valley must look for the proper and highest uses of the resources and 
materials which nature has so bountifully bestowed. Capital and skill 
must be made to supph' the ever-increasing demand of this growing 
people, and thus it will become the mightiest in art, the most bountiful 
in the field, and the richest in commerce ; "in peace more puissant than 
army or navy for the conquest of the world." Stimulated to loftier 
endeavors, each citizen, yielding to irresistible attraction, will seek a 
new life in the great national family. 

But it is argued by some that a city cannot be successful in the 
pursuit of both commercial and manufacturing interests. This cannot 
be maintained as a correct position. There never has been any war 
between commerce and the mechanic arts. There can be none. They 
are the twin offspring of industry and intelligence, and alike dependent 
on each other for prosperity. The false conceptions of the relations 
they hold to each other, and the condition of prosperity they impose 
upon a city, come from a failure to perceive their true interests. The 



THE ARGUMENT. Ill 



principles of economy regulate them both, and it is seldom that a city' 
combines facilities for distribution with advantages for the collection of 
raw material for manufacturing, in the same degree as St. Louis. 

It is because cities have rarely combined these advantages, that many 
have thought that economic considerations forbid the union of com- 
merce and manufactures in the same city. This is a grave mistake ; 
for, in the true growth to which our century points, commerce and 
manufactures go hand-in-hand. Transportation, that important ele- 
ment in the cost of everything that man consumes, and the ease with 
which people change their residence or communicate with each other, 
are bringing about the most wonderful results, and reconstructing our 
theories of profitable manufacturing. From this change the benefits 
are all accruing to St. Louis. Situated as she is, in the centre of the 
richest food-producing section in the world, with unlimited coal for 
power, and unequaled facilities for distribution, she is continually 
attracting to her limits, one after another of the leading manufacturing 
industries ; and these are each being constantly augmented. The 
incubus of slavery being gone forever, and labor elevated to its true 
dignity, Missouri as a State, and St. Louis as a city, move onward 
with a reinvigorated stride. For the supremacy which some point in 
the great Valley must inevitably attain, there are rival claimants — as 
there should be. The Atlantic seaboard, with its facilities, which ruled 
undisputed in an earlier day, stoutly contests this westward movement 
of power, even while admitdng the cogency of the facts which bear 
upon the question. 

New York is to-day the leading city, yet many of her institutions live 
now in the atmosphere of the past. The hard, sharp requirements of 
the day, which demand inexorably that the cost of every necessity and 
of every luxury of life shall be reduced to the lowest possible point, are 
rapidly working out their own solution, as inevitably as rivers find an 
outlet, whatever barriers are interposed. The centre of manufacturing 
industry will soon be found at St. Louis, in the heart of the continent, 
St. Louis itself that heart, whose pulsations receive and drive out the 
rich currents of exchanging commerce. 

New York last year built fewer houses than St. Louis, and her 
aggregate of trade showed a falling off, while here the increase is 
decided and continuous. Of the cities of the Valley, it is not well to 
seek to disparage the claims of any one. Each, in her appropriate 
sphere, has advantages which no other possesses in an equal degree ; 
yet, in the face of acknowledged facts, they are coming to concede the 



112 , THE ARGUMENT 



palm to St. Louis. It is but a few years since Cincinnati won promi- 
nence as a pork-packing city. Even to-day, ten years after the loss 
of the foremost place in that industr}-, her name seems indissolubly 
connected with that trade. Placed in the centre of a rich outlying 
country, she will always control a lucrative and steady trade ; yet she 
has never been, and can never be, a city with a continental trade. 

Chicago, the pampered child of a rich and indulgent East, may boast 
her railways and enviable position for freighting on our inland seas ; and 
yet the fact remains that she draws trade and distributes supplies to a 
section which lies almost entirel}^ on her west and north, and is included 
in an angle which is but little more than the one-fourth of a great circle. 

The rivals of St. Louis seem each to have specialties in which they 
excel, and for which they are noted. She alone represents impartially 
each branch of industry and of commerce, and each seems to flourish 
as a native and not as an exotic. Though commonly rated as an inland 
city, the time is not distant when, with unobstructed navigation at the 
mouth of the Mississippi, ocean steamers will receive and discharge 
their cargoes at her levee. In that day, which is nearer than many 
imagine, the ocean steamer will not only be the vehicle of trade 
between St. Louis and Europe, but will light the path across the 
Gulf of Mexico to the no less tempting markets of Central and South 
America. 

There is another principle that enters into the account, which may 
be termed an involuntary or fortuitous cause. It is the highest form 
of incidental action in commerce. Often commerce, as if by the control 
of an unknown law, will change from one city to another : impoverish 
the one and give vitality and strength to the other. These changes, at 
first thought, seem as inexplicable as the eddy movements of the water 
in the stream. They are changes that usually have their origin in the 
action of a single man in the timely use of money ; sometimes by a 
distant cause ; sometimes b}' legislation, but never does commerce 
forsake an available point for the development of mechanical industry. 
Looking at St. Louis, with her location for internal commerce and 
mechanical industry without a parallel on the earth, we can safely say 
that she is destined to unite in one great interest, a system of commerce 
and manufacturing that will surpass in wealth and skill that of old 
England. It is true, her iron furnaces and glass factories will be built 
some distance outside of her corporate limits, but the wealth and the 
labor will be hers, and beneath her sway will be united side by side, in 
the most profitable relations and on the largest scale, the producer and 



THE ARGUMENT. II3 

consumer. They, actuated by a universal amity, will seek the most 
liberal compensation, attain the highest skill, aspire to a better 
manhood, and learn to do good. The manufacturing of wood into 
its various uses will also form a very important part of the indus- 
try of this city, as will also the manufacturing of fabrics of various 
kinds. Thus, with a great system of manufacturing industr}-, com- 
pelling the coal, the iron, the wood and the sand to serve the 
purposes and wants of the commercial interests, as well as to enter 
into all channels through which capital flows and which industry 
serves, both wealth and population will be developed and concentrated 
in the highest degree. The time lixed for the future great city of the 
world to grow up, the most consummate fruit of man's civilization, is 
within one hundred years from our date. 

Let us look still deeper into this matter, and consider the new 
agencies and influences that tend in modern times, with such irresistible 
force, to concentrate mankind in the great interior cities of the 
continents. The greatest of these agencies compels a more rapid 
development of the internal commerce of modern nations than in past 
times, and the consequent organization and concentration of human 
power in the interior cities. 

There is not a living man whose experience, if -he has noted the facts 
written in the records of his own land, does not teach him of the 
continental growth and the consequent interior development of the 
country, in support of the argument under consideration. So numerous 
and convincing are the facts, that the constant development of the 
internal trade of our continent is rapidly reversing the proportion of our 
domestic to our foreign commerce. That the immense growth of our 
domestic and internal commerce will guide and control our industry, 
and establish and organize human power and civilization in our own 
land in conformity to the most economic principles of production — 
supply and demand — there is no manner of doubt. This done, our 
foreign commerce will only be auxiliary to the enjoyments of our people, 
and contribute to the development of cosmopoHtan ideas among the 
world's inhabitants, more than to the creation of wealth among the 
nations. 

It may be asked, to what cause must this change in the relative value 
of foreign and domestic commerce, and the influence of each upon 
civilized man, be referred? The answer is, that steam is the cause. It 
is the most wonderful artificial agency to advance public and private 
wants that man has yet made subservient to his will. It almost serves 
his entire mechanical wants. 



114 



THE ARGUMENT 



We then again repeat that it is this agency that is rapidly transform- 
ing the ancient order of the world's industry and commerce to a new 
application and a new power. It will compel the cities of the interior, 
in the future, to outgrow, for all time, the coast cities. It is this agency, 
more than all other mechanical agencies, that has lifted mankind from 
the vassal empires of Cyrus, the Caesars and Charlemagne, to the great 
empires of our own time. It is this agency that will forever develop 
domestic commerce to a vastl}' greater value than that of foreign com- 
merce, and, consequently, is the most powerful agency to produce the 
great city of the future that the genius of man has made subservient to 
his wants. 

But let us not be understood as desirous of undervaluing foreign 
trade. We hope and believe that its greatest blessings and triumphs 
are yet to come. Many of the articles which it brings to us add much 
to our substantial comfort, such as woolen and cotton goods, sugar and 
molasses ; and others, such as iron and steel, with most of their manu- 
factures, give much aid to our advancing arts. But if these articles 
were the products of domestic industr}- — if they were produced in the 
factories of Lowell and Dayton, on the plantations of Louisiana, and in 
the furnaces, forges and workshops of Pennsylvania and Missouri — 
why would not the dealing in them have the same tendency to enrich as 
now that they are brought from distant countries ? 

A disposition to attribute the rapid increase of wealth in commercial 
nations mainly to foreign commerce, is not peculiar to our nation or our 
time, for we find it combated as a popular error by distinguished 
writers on political economy. Mr. Hume, in his essay on commerce, 
rhaintains that the only way in which foreign commerce tends to enrich 
a country, is by its presenting tempting articles of luxury, and thereby 
stimulating the industry of those in whom a desire to purchase is thus 
excited — the augmented industry of the nation being the only gain. 

Dr. Chalmers says : "Foreign trade is not the creator of any economic 
interest; it is but the officiating minister of our enjoyments. Should we 
consent to forego those enjoyments, then, at the bidding of our will, 
the whole strength at present embarked in the service of procuring them 
would be transferred to other services — to the extension of home trade ; 
to the enlargement of our national establishments ; to the service of 
defense, or conquest, or scientific research, or Christian philanthropy." 
Speaking of the foolish purpose of Bonaparte to cripple Britain by 
destroying her foreign trade, and its utter failure, he says : "The truth 
is, that the extinction of foreign trade in one quarter was almost imme- 



T H E A R (i U M E N T . 1 1 5 

diately followed up either by the extension of it in another quarter, or 
b}- the extension of the home trade. Even had every outlet abroad 
been obstructed, then, instead of a transferrence from one foreign mar- 
ket to another, there would just be a universal reflux toward a home 
market that would be extended in precise proportion with every succes- 
sive abridgment which took place in our external commerce." If these 
principles are true — and we believe they are in accordance with those 
of every eminent writer on political economy, and if they are important 
in their apphcation to the British Isles — small in territory, with extensive 
districts of barren land, surrounded by navigable waters^, rich in good 
harbors, and presenting numerous natural obstacles to constructions for 
the promotion of internal commerce ; and, moreover, placed at the 
door of the richest nations of the world — with how much greater force 
do they apply to our country, having a territory twenty times as large, 
unrivaled in natural means of inter-communication, with few obstacles 
to their indefinite multiplication by the hand of man ; a fertility of soil 
not equaled by the whole world ; growing within its boundaries nearly 
all the productions of all the climes of the earth, and situated three 
thousand miles from her nearest commercial neighbor. 

Will it be said that, admitting the chief agency in building up oreat 
cities to belong to internal industry and trade, it remains to be proved 
that New York and the other great Atlantic cities will feel less of the 
beneticial effects of this agency than St. Louis and her Western sisters? 
It does not appear to us difficult to sustain, by facts and reason, the 
superior claims in this respect of our western towns. It should be 
borne in mind that the North American Valley embraces the climate, 
soils, and minerals usuall}^ found distributed among many nations. 
From the northern shores of the upper lakes, and the highest navigable 
points of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the Gulf of Mexico, 
nearl}' all the agricultural articles which contribute to the enjoyment of 
civiHzed man are now, or may be, produced to supply any demand. 
The North will send to the South grain, flour, provisions, including the 
delicate fish of the lakes, and the fruits of a temperate clime, in 
exchange for the sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, and the fruits of the 
warm South. These are but a few of the articles, the produce of 
the soil, which will be the subjects of commerce in this Valle>'. Of 
mineral productions, which, at no distant da}', will tend to swell the tide 
of internal commerce, it will suffice to mention coal, iron, salt, lead, 
lime, and marble. Will Boston, or New York, or Baltimore, or New 
Orleans, be the point selected for the interchange of these products .^ 



Il6 THE ARGUMENT. 

Or shall we choose more convenient central points on rivers and lakes 
for the theatres ot' these exchanges? 

It is imagined by some that the destiny of this Valley has fixed it 
down to the almost exclusive pursuit of agriculture ; ignorant that, as a 
general rule in all ages of the world, and in all countries, the mouths 
£fo to the food, and not the food to the mouths. Dr. Chalmers savs : 
" The bulkiness of food forms one of those forces in the economic 
machine which tends to equalize the population of ever}^ land with the 
products of its own agriculture. It does not restrain disproportion and 
excess in all cases ; but in every large State it will be found that wher- 
ever an excess obtains, it forms but a very small fraction of the whole 
population. Each trade must have an agricultural basis to rest upon ; 
for, in ever}' process of industr}^ the first and greatest necessity is that 
the workmen shall be fed."' Again : " Generally speaking, the excres- 
cent (the population over and above that which the country can feed) 
bears a very minute proportion to the natural population of the country ; 
and almost nowhere does the commerce of a nation overleap, but by a 
very little way, the basis of its own agriculture." The Atlantic States, 
and particularly those of New England, cannot claim that they are to 
become the seats of the manufactures with which the West is to be 
supplied ; that mechanics and artisans and manufacturers are not to 
select for their place of business the region in which the means of living 
are most abundant, and their manufactured articles in greatest demand, 
but the section which is most deficient in those means, and to which 
their food and fuel must, during their lives, be transported hundreds of 
miles, and the products of their labor be sent back the same long road 
for a market. 

Such a claim is neither sanctioned by reason, authority nor experi- 
ence. The mere statement exhibits it as unreasonable. Dr. Chalmers 
maintains that the "excrescent" population could not, in Britain even, 
with a free trade in breadstuffs, exceed one-tenth of all the inhabitants : 
and Britain, be it remembered, is nearer the granaries of the Baltic 
than is New England to the food-exporting portions of our Valley, and 
she has also greatly the advantage in the diminished expenses of trans- 
portation. But the Eastern manufacturing States have already nearly, 
if not quite, attained to the maximum ratio of excrescent population, 
and cannot, therefore, greatly augment their manufactures without a 
corresponding increase in agricultural production. 

Most countries distinguished for manufactures have laid the founda- 
tion in a highly improved agriculture. England, the north of France 



THE ARGUMENT. II7 

and Belgium have a more productive husbandry than an}- other region 
of the same extent. In these same countries are also to be found the 
most efficient and extensive manufacturing estabHshments of the whole 
world ; and it is not to be doubted that the abundance of food was one 
of the chief causes of setting them in motion. How is it that a like 
cause operating here will not produce a like effect? Have we not, in 
addition to our prolific agriculture, as many and as great natural aids 
for manufacturing as any other country ? The water-power of Missouri 
alone is o-reater than that of New Enrjland ; besides, there are immense 
facilities in the States of Kentucky, Minnesota and Ohio, as well as 
valuable advantages possessed in all the Valley States. But to these 
water-powers can be added the immeasurable power of steam in devel- 
oping manufacturing industry in our own as well as other States of 
this Valley. 

If our readers are satisfied that domestic or internal trade must have 
the chief agencv in building up our great American cities, and that the 
internal trade of the great Western Valley will be mainly concentrated 
in the cities situated within its bosom, it becomes an interesting subject 
of inquir}' how our leading interior city will at some distant period, say 
one hundred years, become the great city of the world, and gather to 
itself the preponderance of the industry and trade of the continent. 

But our interior cities will not depend for their development altogether 
on internal trade. They will partake, in some degree, with their 
Atlantic and Pacific sisters, of foreign commerce also : and if, as some 
seem to suppose, the profits of commerce increase with the distance at 
which it is carried on, and the difficulties which nature has thrown in 
its way, the western towns will have the same advantage over their 
eastern rivals in foreign commerce, which some claim for the latter over 
the former in our domestic trade. St. Louis and her lake rivals may 
use the out-ports of New Orleans and New York, as Paris and Vienna 
use those of Havre and Trieste ; and it will surely one day come to pass 
that steamers from Europe will enter our great lakes and be seen 
booming up the Mississippi! 

To add strength and conclusiveness to the above facts and deduc- 
tions, do our readers ask for examples? They are at hand. The first 
city of which we have any record is Nineveh, situated on the Tigris, not 
less than seven hundred miles from its mouth. Babylon, built not long 
after, was also situated far in the interior, on the river Euphrates. 
Most of the great cities of antiquit}', some of which were of immense 
extent, were situated in the interior, and chiefly in the vallej^s of large 



Il8 THE ARGUMENT. 

rivers meandering through rich alluvial territories. Such were Thebes, 
Memphis, Ptolemais and Rome. 

But when we consider that our position in vindication of the superior 
growth of interior cities over outports is sustained b}' the civilization of 
the ancient nations, as found in the examples of their great interior 
cities, and that, too, when water facilities ruled the commerce of the 
world, must not all opposing argument in favor of seaboard cities be of 
naught when we bring to the discussion the power and use of steam, 
the railway system, and the labor-saving and labor-increasing inventions 
which the arts afford ? Comprehending this mighty reversal in the 
order and means of industrial civilization, must we not say with Horace 
Greeley, that " salt water is about played out" ? 

Of cities now known as leading centres of commerce, a large majority 
have been built almost exclusively by domestic trade. What country 
possesses so many great cities as China — a country, until lately, nearly 
destitute of foreign commerce ? 

There are now in the world more than three hundred cities containing 
a population of fifty thousand and upwards : of these more than two- 
thirds are interior cities, containing a population vastly greater than 
belongs to the outport cities. It should, however, be kept in mind that 
many of the great seaports have been built, and are now sustained, 
mainly by the trade of the nations respectively in which the}^ are 
situated. Even London, the greatest mart in the world, is believed to 
derive much the greater part of the support of its vast population from 
its trade with the United Kingdom. At the present time not one- 
fifteenth of the business of New York Cit}^ is based upon foreign 
commerce, but is sustained by the trade growing out of our home 
industry. 

Though the argument is not exhausti\e, it is conclusive. It is 
founded in the all-directing under life-currents of human existence upon 
this planet, and from those principles there is neither variableness nor 
shadow of turning away. Man's home is upon the land : he builds his 
master-works upon its sure foundations. It is upon the land that he 
invents, contrives, plans and achieves his mightiest deeds. He spreads 
his sails upon the seas, and battles with the tempest and the storm ; and 
amid the sublimities of the ocean he travels unknown paths in search of 
fame. The ephemeral waves obliterate the traces of his victories with 
the passing moments ; upon the land, time alone can efface his works. 

The organization of society as one whole is yet too imperfect to call 
for the use of one all-directing head and one central moving heart, and 



THE ARGUMENT. II9 

it will only be the ultimate, the iinal great city, that will fully unite in 
itself the functions analogous to those of the human head and heart, in 
relation to the whole family of man. 

The Iinal triumph of the great city will also carry with it a final 
organization of the world's civilization — a perfect unity of the entire 
interests of the advanced nations of the earth. The higher functions of 
intellectual life will be so exerted as to subordinate the passions and 
sentiments of men to principles of harmonious organization and unity, 
thus establishing a perfect system of society and government by means 
of harmony between the active and passive relations — between the 
individuals and the community. 

Assuming these things to be true, the prophecy of the great city is 
also a prophecy of the final great centre of industrial and commercial 
life, and the centre of this great commercial power will also carry with 
it the centre of the moral and intellectual power. One hundred years, 
at our previous rate of increase, will give more than four duplications, 
and more than six hundred million of people, to the present area of 
our country. But, allowing twenty-five years for a duplication, and 
four duplications, we should have six hundred million, at the close of 
one hundred years. Of these, not less than four hundred million will 
inhabit the interior plain and the region west of it ; and not over two 
hundred million will inhabit the margin east of the Appalachian chain 
of mountains. The productions of these four hundred millions, intended 
for exchange with each other, will meet at the most convenient point 
central to the place of the grow^th or manufacture of their products. 
Where, then, let us inquire again, is most likely to be the centre of the 
most ample and best facilities for the exchange, in the future, of the 
commodities of that great people ? Where will that point be ? Which 
of the four cities we have under consideration is best suited for this 
great purpose? Must it not be St. Louis, commanding, as she will, the 
greatest railway and river communication? It cannot be a lake city, 
for neither of them can command, with so great advantage, the great 
surplus products of the country. It cannot be Cincinnati, for she is 
not so well situated in the centre of the productive power of the conti- 
nent. It cannot be New Orleans ; higher freights upon the products of 
the countrv will be against her. It cannot be New York nor San Fran- 
cisco, for all our six fundamental facts stand against them, and unerr- 
ingly point to the central plain of the continent, where the six hundred 
million of people will prefer to transact business. 



I20 THE ARGUMENT. 

The late Dr. Scott of Toledo, by far the most able writer on the 
cities of this country, under date of February i6, 1873, and singularly 
in his last letter to the author, uses the following significant language, 
which he desired to be permanently recorded, for future reference : 

" I shall not live to see the final triumph of the great city of the future, in our great 
interior plain, but jou may. Please save the opinion I now express, that it will be on a 
lake border — probably at or near the west end of Lake Erie. I expect the census of 18S0 
will show the growth of the three cities — Cleveland, Detroit and Toledo — in advance of 
that of Chicago. Up to this time, Chicago has shot ahead, and is now more populous 
than the three cities. After 1880, I expect the rivalry will be between the three Lake Erie 
cities. It is likely that St. Louis will grow faster than you have ventured to foretell — 
perhaps faster than you have anticipated. But, in my opinion, its location is too far 
south and west to become the best point for the convergence, interior and exterior, of our 
country."' 

Because of a deep respect for Dr. Scott, his superior abilities, great 
power of mental forecast, and high moral character, his opinion is 
cheerfully recorded, with the following repl}' : 

Dr. Scott's views upon the future of the cities of this country seems, 
without a question of doubt, to have been given shape by the contest 
between slavery and freedom on this continent, and not even changed 
after the abolition of slavery. 

Previous to the civil war, no man seemed to consider the material 
progress of this country from any other stand-point than that of the 
eastward and westward movement of commerce and population. A 
new lesson is presented for the study of our entire population. The 
abolition of slavery, and the plain and simple demands of commerce, 
are now compelling a new — a north and south movement of commerce 
and population on this continent, w^hich is rapidly superseding and des- 
tined to supplant the eastward and westward movement. Dr. Scott did 
not take into the account of the discussion on the future great city this 
new movement, and therefore failed to comprehend the new influences 
destined to be exerted upon the growth of our cities. Assuming it to 
be true, and no reasonable man can disprove it, that the north and south 
movement of commerce and population on this continent will supplant, 
or at least become greater than the movement east and west, it 
must be conceded that the opinion of Dr. Scott is wrong in every par- 
ticular ; that St. Louis has the vantage ground by her location, and 
must grow to be the great city of this continent, and "become the best 
point for the convergence, interior and exterior, of our country." 



T IJ E A R G U M E N T . 121 

We have seen that the human race, with all its freight of commerce, 
its barbarism and civilization, its arms and arts, through pestilence and 
prosperity, across seas and over continents, like one mighty caravan, 
has been moving forward since creation's dawn, from the east to the 
west, with sword and cross, helmet and distaft', to the conquest of the 
world ; and, like a mighty army, leaving weakness behind and organ- 
izing power in the advance. Hence, we can easily realize that the 
same inevitable cause that wrested human power from the cities of the 
ancients and vested it for a time in the cit}' of the Caesars, that moved 
it thence to the city of London, will, in time, cross the Atlantic Ocean 
and be organized and represented in the future great city of the world, 
which is destined to grow" up on the American continent ; and that this 
power, wealth and wisdom that once ruled in Troy, Athens, Carthage 
and Rome, and are now represented b}- the city of London — the pre- 
cursor of the final great city — will, in less than one hundred years, find 
a resting-place in North America, and culminate in the future great 
city which is destined to grow up in the central plain of the continent, 
and upon the great Mississippi River, where the city of St. Louis now 
stands. 

I know" there are those who assume that New" York is to be the suc- 
cessor of London, and even surpass in population and commercial 
supremacy that great city of the trans-Atlantic shore, before the posi- 
tion of the final great city is fixed. That is not possible. We have 
only to comprehend the new character of our national industry, and the 
diversity of interests w"hich it and our rapidly increasing S3"stem of 
railw^ays are establishing, to know that it is impossible. The city of 
New York will not, in the future, control the same proportionate share 
of foreign and domestic commerce of the country that she heretofore 
has. New Orleans and San Francisco will take some of the present 
valued trade, and, together with other points which will soon partake 
of the outport commerce, the trade to and from our country will be so 
divided as to prevent New" York from becoming the rival, much less the 
superior, of London, as Mr. Scott has so earnestly contended. Then. 
in the westward movement of human power to the centre of the 
world's commerce, from the city of London to the New^ World, it is 
not possible for it to find a complete and final resting place in any cit}- 
of the Atlantic seaboard, but it will be compelled to move forward 
until, in its complete development, it will be organized and represented 
in the most favored citv in the central plain of the continent. Besides 
the diffusion of our external commerce through so many channels upon 



122 THE ARGUMENT. 

our seaboard, so as to prevent its concentration at an}^ one of the sea- 
board cities, there are elements at work in the interior of the country, 
which will more surely prevent the city that is to succeed London from 
growing up on the Atlantic shore of our continent. Every tendency of 
our national progress is more and more to our continental development 
— a living at home, rather than go abroad to distant markets. There is 
an inherent principle lurking among all people of great continental 
nationality and resources, which impresses them stronger with home 
interests than with external and distant fields of action ; and this prin- 
ciple is rapidly infusing itself among the people of these great Valley 
States ; therefore, it is needless to look into the future to see our great 
cities on either seaboard of our continent, for they are not destined to 
be there. But most certainly will they grow up in the interior, upon 
the lakes, the rivers and the Gulf, and among these cities of the inte- 
rior we are to look for the future great city of the world — that which 
London now heralds, and which the westward tendency of the world's 
civilization will, in less than one hundred 3'ears, build up as the greatest 
industrial organism of the human race. 

Human power is not onh' moving westward from the old world, but 
it is also moving from the Atlantic seaboard westward. But a few facts 
are necessary to demonstrate the truth of this statement : First, in evi- 
dence that human power is moving westward from the old world, we 
have but to refer to the reports of the State Department at Washington 
upon our foreign commerce, to learn that our imports are greater than 
our exports, and our internal commerce far greater than our foreign 
commerce ; and by reference to the various reports on emigration, we 
learn that thousands are coming from Western Europe yearly, to our 
shores, while but few of our own people are seeking homes on the 
other side of the Atlantic. Second, in evidence of the westward move- 
ment of human power from the Atlantic States, statistical tables show, 
in the most conclusive manner, that human power is moving westward ; 
many thousands of new miles of railway are. yearly added to the great 
system of the Mississippi Valley, and at least three-fifths of the number 
of miles of railways of the entire countr}' are now in this great Valley. 

Nor can these facts, in their magnitude and character, be considered 
of casual concern to the American citizen, for they are the most import- 
ant in our national progress. They are the irrefutable evidences of the 
historic and sublime march of the American people, in the course of 
the star of empire in its majestic career across the continent. 

But granting that human power is moving westward on this continent, 



THE ARGUMENT. I23 

a question arises as to whether, in time, it will be arrested, and make a 
lodgment somewhere in North America, or whether it will cross the 
Pacific Ocean to the inferior races of Asia. 

To answer this question, we have only to reconsider the vast material 
resources of North America, and realize that they are far more inviting 
to capital and skill than any inducements that Asia can offer. This fact 
is so palpable that it requires no argument, and therefore must settle 
the question of the arrest of human power in its westward movement on 
this continent. Nor will it reach, and make a lodgment on, the Pacific 
slope. 

The vast arid and mountainous regions of the western half of the 
continent, and the unequaled extent of fertile lands on the eastern halt",. 
and adjacent to and on either side of the great river, fixes its location 
inevitably in the central plain of the continent and in the centre of its 
productive power. And with the development and complete organiza- 
tion of human power in the centre of the productive power of the conti- 
nent, will most certainly grow up the great city of the future — the great 
material, social, civil and moral heart of the human race. The raw 
materials necessary to the artisan and the manufacturer, in the produc- 
tion of whatever ministers to comfort and elegance, are here. The 
bulkiness of food and raw minerals make it to the interest of the artisan 
and the manufacturer to locate themselves near the place where those 
materials grow. It is this interest, constantly operating, which peoples, 
our Western towns and cities with emigrants from the Eastern States- 
and Europe. When food and raw materials for manufacture are no 
longer cheaper in the great Valley than in the States of the Atlantic and 
the nations of Western Europe, then, and not till then, will it cease to 
be to the interest of artisans and manufacturers to prefer a location in. 
Western towns and cities. This time will probably be about the period 
when the Mississippi shall flow toward the Arctic regions. 

The chief points for the exchange of the varied productions of 
the Mississippi Valley, will necessarily give employment to the great 
population. Indeed, the locations of our future great cities have been 
made with reference to their commercial capabilities. Commerce has 
laid the foundation on which manufactures have been, to a great extent* 
instrumental in rearing the superstructure. Together, these depart- 
ments of labor are destined to build up in this fertile Valley the greatest 
cities of the w^orld. 

It is something to us Americans that the great city — the great all- 
directing heart of the race — is to grow up in our land. Even to us of 



124 THE ARGUMENT. 

this generation, a conviction of the final growth of the great marvel of 
future ages is a thought which we can indulge and enjoy with pride in 
the present and coming conflicts of this progressive life. As we have 
already seen, St. Louis is substantially central to the Mississippi Valley, 
and no city on the continent can lay any just claim to become the future 
great city, or occupy a central position to so many valuable resources, 
as she does. She is not only substantially in the centre of the 
Mississippi Valley, but, allowing her to be nine hundred miles from 
New York City, she occupies the centre of an area of 2,544,688 square 
miles, and within a circumference the outer line of which touches 
Chicago. She occupies the centre of an area of country which, in fer- 
tility of soil, coal, iron, timber, stone, water, domestic navigation and 
railways, cannot be equaled on the globe. 

Not only so, but when we consider by what general rules the cities 
have grown and are now growing on this continent, we must conclude 
that St. Louis still occupies the most favorable position for greatness 
and power. 

Let us look at this for one moment. Leaving the Atlantic seaboard, 
we observe that the cities of the continent have been erected within 
belts or zones : the most central and important of which are 

THE CITIES OF THE RIVER ZONE. 

This zone embraces the belt of country between the mouth of Chesa- 
peake Bay and the lower end of Long Island Sound, and extending 
westward to the headwaters of the Republican, Smoky Hill and 
Arkansas. Within this belt of countr}^ is embraced most of the 
internal and river navigation of the United States, and upon the rivers 
included within it, now exist the cities of the river zone. They occup}' 
the most favored localities of any cities in the United States. 



THE CITIES OF THE LAKE ZONE. 

On the north have been founded the cities of the lake zone. They 
liave been built along the line of the lakes, from east to west, to the 
Upper Mississippi, and form a very important chain of commercial 
cities, but never can equal in wealth and power the cities of the river 
^one. 



THE ARGUMENT. 12' 



THE CITIES OV THE (JULF ZONE. 



On the south have been founded the cities of the Gulf zone. They 
have been built along and adjacent to the Gulf from east to west, to the 
Rio Grande. The cities of this zone, though they will never grow so 
powerful as those in the River and Lake zone, will grow wealthy, 
and be noted for refinement and social character. 



These three zones represent the manner in which the cities of the 
country grew up under the first movement of civilization across the 
continent from east to west ; but as the Pacific shore has been reached 
bv the pioneer, and the great army of civilization, and neither can 
go beyond, a new and second movement is now being inaugurated, and 
new city zones will soon define themselves. They will be : 

The Atlantic zone, embracing the cities of the Atlantic coast, from 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Cape Florida. 

The next zone of cities under the new movement of civilization on 
the continent, will be the zone at the Mississippi Valley, extending from 
Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Within this zone, in time, will 
exist more great cities than any nation of the earth wall have. 

Beyond this is the zone of the Pacific. This zone will embrace all 
the cities of the Pacific Slope. 

Intermediately, between the zone of the Mississippi Valley and the 
Pacific zone, is the mountain and plateau region, the land of religion 
and conflicting ideas. To this region will belong many cities of splen- 
dor and wealth. 

Now to the application. Take the city zones under the first or sec- 
ond order of civilization on the continent, and in either case St. Louis 
possesses supreme advantages over any other city in North America. 
And especially will her advantages be greater under the new, or sec- 
ond, order of civilization, which will as surely compel all the cities of 
the Valley to go out at the mouth of the Mississippi to the Gulf, and to 
the world. Chicago, no doubt, is not ready to accept such a destiny, 
but no matter, she will. She, too, with Cincinnati and St. Louis, must 
follow the flow of the waters to the Gulf. This will establish St. Louis 
as the great continental distributing point, the depot and the entrepot 
for the great bulk of the commerce of the country. 



126 THE ARGUMENT. 

The immense accommodation of railroads will, by rapid, cheap and 
easy communication, draw to great centres from great distances around, 
and thus the great cities of the world will continue to grow until the}- 
reach a magnitude hitherto unknown, and yet, above them all, will 
St. Louis reap the rich rewards of modern discoveries and inventions, 
especialh' as regards steam and all its vast and varied influence. 

But let us pass on. Cities, like individuals, have a law of growth 
that may be said to be constitutional and inherent, and yet the law gov- 
erning the growth of cities does not seem to be sufllciently understood 
to furnish a basis for calculadng their growth to any considerable time 
in the future. In the development of a nation and country, new agen- 
cies are continuall}' coming into the account of growth and work, either 
favorable or unfavorable. The growth of cities is somewhat analogous 
to the pursuits of business men ; some move rapidly forward in the 
accumulation of wealth to the end of life, others only for a time are able 
to keep even with the world. So, too, in the growth of cities ; and thus 
it is difficult to calculate with exactness their future growth. Cities 
grow with greater rapiditv than nations and States, and much sooner 
double their population ; and, with the constantly increasing tendenc}' 
of the people to live in cities, we can look with greater certainty to the 
early triumph of our inland cities over those of the seaboard, for, so 
surely as the population of the Valley States doubles that of the sea- 
board States, so surely will their cities be greater. The city of London, 
now the greatest in the world, having more than three million people, 
has only doubled its population every thirty years, while New York has 
doubled every fifteen years. According to Mr. J. W. Scott, London 
grows at an average annual rate, on a long time, of two per cent., New 
York at five ; Chicago at twelve and one-half : Toledo, twelve ; Mil- 
waukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo and St. Louis, at the 
rate of eight per cent. Mr. Scott gives these calculations as approxi- 
mately true for long periods of time. They may be essentialh' true in 
the past, but cannot be relied on for the future ; for, as I have already 
said, the growth of a city is as uncertain as a man's chance in business : 
he may pass directly on to fortune, or may be kept back by the fluc- 
tuations of the markets, or greater hindrances interposed by wars. 

Touching the subject of climate, I do not deem it of sufficient bear- 
ing upon my theme to enter into a nice discussion of the influence of 
heat and cold upon man in civilized life, in the north temperate zone of 
the North American continent. All experience teaches that there is not 
suflFicient variation of the climate throughout the middle belt of our 



THE ARGUMENT . I 27 

country to adversely affect the highest and greatest purposes of Ameri- 
can industry and American civilization. The same rewards and the 
same destiny await all. The densest population of which we have any 
record, is now, and has been for centuries, on the thirtieth degree of 
north latitude : and if such can be in China, wh^' mav it not be in 
America ? 

Again, returning to our first fundamental fact, that human power is 
moving westward from the city of London, we must calculate that that 
great city will be succeeded by a rival, one which will grow up in the 
new world, and that this new city will result in the final organization of 
human society in one complete whole, and the perfect development and 
organization of the commerce of the world ; — will grow to such magni- 
ficent proportions, and be so perfectly organized and controlled in its 
municipal governmental character, as to constitute the most perfect and 
greatest city of the world — the all-directing head and heart of the great 
family of man. The new world is to be its home, and nature and civil- 
ization will fix its residence in the central plain, of the continent, and in 
the centre of the productive power of this great Valley, and upon the 
Mississippi River, and where the cit}- of St. Louis now stands. All 
arguments point to this one great fact of the future, and with its perfect 
realization will be attained the highest possibility in the material triumph 
of mankind. 

Let us comprehend the inevitable causes which God and civilization 
have set to work to produce, in time, this final great city of the world : 
let us realize that in our own fair land it will grow up ; and, with 
prophetic conception, realize its final coming ; let us hail it as the 
master-work of all art and the home of consummated wisdom, the 
inheritance of organic liberty, and a city to be controlled by an all- 
pervading social order that will insure a competency to every member 
of the in-gathered families. 

Henceforth, St. Louis must be viewed in the light of her future, her 
mightiness in the empire of the world, her sway in the rule of States 
and nations. Her destiny is fixed. Like a new-born empire, she is 
moving forward to conscious greatness, and will soon be the world's 
magnet of attraction. In her bosom all the extremes of the country are 
represented, and to her growth all parts of the country contribute. 
Mighty as are the possibilities of her people, still mightier are the hopes 
inspired. The city that she now is, is only the germ of the city that 
she will be, with her ten million souls occup3'ing the vast area of her 
domain. Her strength will be that of a nation, and, as she grows 



128 THE ARGUMENT. 

toward maturity, her institutions of learning and philosophy will cor- 
respondingly advance. If we but look forward, in imagination, to her 
consummated destiny, how grand is the conception ! We can realize 
that here will be reared great halls and edifices for art and learning ; 
here will congregate the great men and women of future ages ; here 
will be represented, in the future, some Solon and Hamilton, giving 
laws for the higher and better government of the people ; here will be 
represented some future great teachers of religion, teaching the ideal 
and spiritual development of the race, and the higher allegiance of man 
to the angel-world ; here will live some future Plutarch, who will weigh 
the great men of his age ; here some future "Mozart will thrill the 
strings of a more perfect lyre, and improvise grandest melodies" for 
the congregated people ; here some future "Rembrandt, through his 
own ideal imagination, will picture for himself more perfect panoramic 
scenes of nature's lovely landscapes." May we not justly rejoice in the 
anticipation of the future greatness of the civil, social, industrial, intel- 
lectual and moral elements which are destined to form a part of the 
future great city? And may w^e not realize that the millions who are 
yet to be its inhabitants will be a wiser and better people than those of 
this generation, and who, in more perfect life, will walk these streets, in 
the city of the future, with a softer tread, and sing music with sweeter 
tones ; be urged on by aspirations of higher aims, rejoice with fuller 
hearts, and adorn in beauty, with more tender hands, the tinal great 
city of the world? 




iog^ailiml 



BioGRAPHiciL Sketches 



r 

35ii\iiiei|t ^ei] kr^d Woir\er( 



ST. LOUIS AND MISSOURI. 




X 



LlETJ.. .iEN_ V/ILLIAlvd T. SHE 



MviAir 



GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN. 



IT is as a soldier that William Tecumseh Sherman stands before the 
world. It is as a soldier that coming history will scan and estimate 
his serv^ices. Those services belong to the whole country, and the 
time is not distant when he of the cotton fields will make his acknowl- 
edgments as warmly as he of the wheat fields, to the man whose restless 
vigor and rare combinations shortened the agony of the nation when 
passing through the most stupendous conflict- of modern times. It is 
impracticable in this sketch to give either a review or a narrative of the 
military record of General Sherman, yet it is quite possible within the 
space at command to present the man himself, with something more of 
clearness than purely militar}^ biographers aim at. Bred to arms, his 
ambitions lay in the line of that profession. Devotedly attached to his 
family, he was not averse in their behalf to entering upon the greater 
perplexities and uncertainties of civil life. It will at some time be an 
interesting question, how far that commerce with the world, which in 
civil life gives so clear an insight into the springs of human action, 
influenced and shaped the military activities of General Sherman. 
Certain it is, that his civil pursuits never detracted from his military 
precision, and there is good ground for the belief that they gave him a 
far more correct and comprehensive view of the resources and designs 
•of the enemy, and of his own opportunities for overthrowing them. In 
our great civil war there were elements entering into the calculations of 
every leader, other than the arithmetical computation of the opposing 
hosts. There were hatreds and distrusts such as can only exist among 
people of the same race and the same tongue. There were jealousies 
■of opinion in the council and in the camp, and he was an able leader 
who could strike rapidly and surely. No other man of our day com- 
bines, as does General Sherman, the reflection of the philosopher with 
the dash and vehemence of the enthusiast. For the performance of a 
great part during the war, few had had a better preparatory training and 
none had observed with greater care or accuracy. 



134 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1861, he took up the sword that he had laid aside in 1853. Then 
followed a series of military exploits, for the recording of which a 
volume would be too meagre. The American people have not, as yet, 
attempted to estimate these services, though as a partial and appropriate 
reward, he has been invested with the command of the armies of the 
United States. 

He was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on the 8th of February 1820. 
His father, Hon. Charles R. Sherman, for some years a Judge of the 
Supreme Court of Ohio, died when he was nine years of age. At 
his father's death he became a member of the family of Hon. Thos. 
Ewing, and at the age of sixteen entered the United States Military 
Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1840 with the sixth rank 
of his class, and was immediately appointed to a Second-Lieutenancy 
in the Third Artillery, and served the next year in Florida. In 
November 1841, he was made a First-Lieutenant, and shortl}^ after 
was ordered to Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor ; Captain Robert 
Anderson commanded the company. 

In 1843, while on a leave of absence and after a stay at his home 
in Ohio, he made a trip to St. Louis, arriving here by steamboat. 
St. Louis was then a city of about forty thousand inhabitants, and his 
stay covered a period of about two weeks. During this visit he made 
many warm personal friends, went all over the thriving city, and made 
up his mind that when free to choose he would locate here. 

In 1846, when the Mexican war broke out he was on recruiting detail 
in Ohio. At his urgent request for orders for active duty, he was sent 
out to California with Company F of the Third Artillery, instead of 
being ordered to active duty in Mexico — the position which he most 
coveted. Leaving New York on the 14th of July 1846, the vessel on 
which he sailed dropped her anchor in the harbor of Monterey, then 
the capital of Upper California, on the 26th of January 1847, after a. 
passage around Cape Horn, touching at Rio Janeiro. In the light of 
the present commerce of the Pacific coast, it is interesting to remember 
that extraordinary caution was used in approaching the coast, as there 
was a material difference in the English and Spanish charts and a 
discrepancy of fifteen miles in longitude. The changes that a few 
years were to bring would then have seemed one of the wildest and 
most impossible dreams. The productions were light, the people not 
homogeneous, and society was disturbed by continuous warlike broils. 
The settlement that afterward became known as San Francisco had a 
population of about four hundred. 



GEN. W. T. SHERMAN. 135 

The first gold discovered in California by Sutter, passed under 
Sherman's inspection at the time of the application of Sutter to Gover- 
nor Mason for a pre-emption of the tract of land on which stood his 
memorable and never-finished saw-mill. With the circumspection 
characteristic of army officers as a class, the extent of the deposits were 
proved b}^ an extended tour of observation to be considerable, before 
the official report was made to their superiors at Washington. Follow- 
ing the promulgation of the official report, there commenced a wild 
struggle for fortune, such as the civiHzed world had never seen — a 
struggle more beneficent iii its results and wider in its influence than 
any other race for gold that history records. Virtually estopped by 
his official position from any share in the golden shower about him, he 
yet used his efforts to promote the interests of the Government, and 
was in no danger of rusting away at his distant post. His pubhshed 
memoirs, detaihng'his recollection of this important period, are concise 
and clear, reproducing before us, without ornament, the California of 
that date. 

In 1850, he returned from California with dispatches for the War 
Department. After reporting in Washington, he apphed for and 
received a six months' leave of absence. He first visited his mother, 
then living at Mansfield, Ohio, and then, returning to Washington, was 
married to Miss Ellen Boyle Ewing, daughter of Hon. Thomas Ewing, 
Secretary of the Interior, on the first day of May 1850. On the death 
of General Taylor and the inauguration of Mr. Fillmore, Hon. Thomas 
Ewing was succeeded in the secretaryship by A. H. H. Stewart, and 
Lieutenant Sherman took charge of the family on the journey to their 
old home in Lancaster, Ohio. 

At this time, his name was on the muster-roll of Company C of the 
Third Artillery, stationed at Jeflerson Barracks, yet, owing to the 
cholera being here, he was permitted to delay joining his company. 
Soon after his arrival at Jefferson Barracks, where he reported for duty 
to Captain and Brevet-Colonel Braxton Bragg, commanding Company 
C, he received his commission as Captain and Commissary of Subsist- 
ence, and was ordered to take post at St. Louis. Here he had an 
opportunity of renewing the acquaintances of former years, and was 
soon joined by his family. 

In September 1852, he was transferred to New Orleans. About 
Christmas of that year. Major Turner of St. Louis, laid before him the 
particulars of a plan for the estabhshment of a bank in San Francisco, 
under the title of Lucas, Turner & Co., in which he embraced the 



136 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

name of his personal friend, Captain Sherman. James H. Lucas, then 
banking in St. Louis, soon after laid before him in person the partic- 
ulars of the California branch bank, and desired him to accept the 
position of resident and managing partner in San Francisco. The offer 
was a tempting one, and he applied for and obtained a six months' leave 
of absence to go to San Francisco and look over the prospect carefully 
before venturing upon a step so important to himself and family. Hav- 
ing satisfied himself of the advantage of the change, he sent in his 
resignation, which was accepted to take effect September 6, 1853. On 
the 20th of the same month, he left New York in a steamer with his 
family to make his home on the Pacific Slope, and had a safe and 
rather uneventful trip by way of the Isthmus. On his previous voyage 
he had suffered shipwreck on the steamship "Lewis," when near the 
harbor of San Francisco, though fortunatel}- the weather was fair and 
no lives were lost. 

The position of a banker in the years from 1853 to 1857 was no "bed 
of roses." Nothing short of " eternal vigilance " could secure safety 
even. That General Sherman so conducted the afiairs of the bank of 
which he had charge as to save it from any of those stunning losses so 
common where values are rapidly shifting, must be accounted as a fact 
very much to the credit of his industr^^ and discernment. In a season 
of wild distrust in 1855, when every other bank in San Francisco was 
compelled to close its doors, his establishment stood the ordeal of a 
"run," and demonstrated its ability to pay all its depositors who wanted 
their money. During the reign of the " Vigilantes " he came near 
playing a leading part ; but a lack of promised co-operation on the part 
of General Wool, killed his plan, and disgusted him with California 
poHtics. 

Early in 1857 he notified his St. Louis partners that he thought 
the discontinuance of the California branch advisable, and they concur- 
ring in his opinion, he closed the business, and, with his family, made 
his way to Lancaster, Ohio. Upon conference with Mr. Lucas and 
Major Turner, it was decided to open a branch house in New York, and 
that was done on the 21st day of July 1857, upon the very verge of one 
of the most memorable financial panics our countr}- has witnessed. In 
the fall of that year, the business of the parent house in St. Louis and 
its branch was closed up without loss to patrons, and without material 
sacrifice on the part of the partners. 

In January of 1858, Sherman made another trip to California to 
expedite the closing up of unsettled afiairs there. He returned soon 



GEN. W. T. SHERMAN. I37 

after, and reached his old home in Lancaster, Ohio, on the 28th of 
July 1858. 

He was now a civiHan, out of business, with no brilHant prospect 
before him, and the necessity of doing something was urgent. Several 
opportunities were presented, but none of them seemed free from 
objection. In his dilemma he accepted a partnership with Thomas 
Ewing, Jr., in a law, collection and agency business in Leavenworth, 
Kansas. Later, Daniel McCook was admitted to partnership, and the 
firm became Sherman, Ewing & McCook. While in Kansas, and 
unsatisfied with the outlook for the future, he made application for the 
place of superintendent in the proposed Louisiana Military Academy, 
and in Jul}'- 1859, ^^^^ notified by Governor R. C. Wicklift' of his 
election. In the autumn of the same year he reported to Governor 
Wicklifi' at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and from there proceeded to 
Alexandria, in the parish of Rapides, near which town the building for 
the school was located. Upon arrival at his post he proceeded to put 
the building in order, collect apparatus, and otherwise provide for the 
reception of students. 

This is the field in which he was occupied until the signs of prepara- 
tion for war on the part of the South became unmistakable. It is but 
natural that here, as elsewhere, he should have made warm friends. 
An entertaining conversationalist, direct, positive, logical, with opinions 
matured by culture and a wide experience, it is by no means strange 
that he was sought and admired among people who never esteemed 
extreme complaisance as a high social quality. His devotion to the 
Union was well known among all who troubled themselves to learn his 
political views, and it does not appear that any hopes were built upon 
his defection from the flag under which he had been reared. The 
position was one that suited him, that accorded with his temper, his 
tastes, and his scholarly inclinations. 

After the seizure of the United States Arsenal at Baton Rouge, and 
while the ordinance for the formal secession of the State of Louisiana 
was pending, he, on the i8th of Januar}^ 1861, addressed the following 
letter to the Governor of the State, defining his position, and rendering 
back the trust confided to him, a trust of which he could no longer, 
consistentl}' with his own honor, be the custodian : 

Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, 

January iS, iS6i. 
Governor Thomas O'Moore, Baton Rouffc, Louisiana: 

Sir — As I occupy a ^//«5/-military authority under the laws of the State, I deem it 
proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a State in the 



138 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Union, and when the motto of this seminary was inserted in marble over the main door: 
"By the liberality of the General Government of the United States. The Union— esfo - 
ferfetua.^^ 

Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If 
Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the 
Constitution so long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be 
wrong in every sense of the word. 

In that event, I beg that you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge 
of the arms and munitions of war belonging to the State, or advise me what disposition to 
make of them. 

And furthermore, as president of the board of supervisors, I beg you to take immediate 
steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the State determines to secede, for on no 
earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old 
Government of the United States. 

With great respect, your obedient servant, 

W. T. SHERMAN, 

Superintendent. 

The farther correspondence which passed in that stormy time, when 
read in the hght of the untroubled present, is full of instruction. The 
one given here is the first and the key-note to all, yet, in view of the 
pecuniary renunciation he was making, and the necessities of himself 
and family, there is something almost pathetic in the position in w^hich 
his resignation placed him. 

His settlements and transfers of property in his charge occupied him 
about a month, and then, with mutual expressions of confidence and 
kindness, he parted from his associates, and turned to the path of his 
paramount duty. 

In his anxiety for the future of himself and his family, he accepted 
employment secured through the influence of and proflered by his old 
friend, Major Turner, and became president of the Fifth Street Rail- 
road in St. Louis. He had, however, gone on to Washington in the 
meantime, and on the trip was much struck with the contrast between 
the preparations going on at the South and the apparent apathy of the 
North. Almost immediately after assuming his new obligations in St. 
Louis, he was asked to accept the chief-clerkship of the War Depart- 
ment, with the prospect of being made Assistant Secretary of War soon 
after. This profter he felt constrained to decline on account of his new 
' business engagements that he did not feel at liberty to cast loose from, 
except the emergency was a great one. 

The bombardment of Fort Sumter dissipated all doubt, and indicated 
plainly to him that we were upon the eve of a great struggle that would 
call out the fufl military strength of both sections. He then, on the 
8th of May, formally offered his services to the Secretary of War, and 



GEN. W. T. SHERMAN. 139 

on the 14th of the same month, was appointed to the Colonelcy o± the 
Thirteenth regular infantry. He was a citizen spectator of the capture 
of Camp Jackson by Lyon on the loth of May, and of the lamentable 
occurrences succeeding the capture. The description of the events of 
the day found in his Memoirs is concise and evidently unprejudiced. 
With his new commission he had drawn the sword ; his St. Louis home 
was abandoned, and his family returned to Lancaster, Ohio. Better 
than those who shared his councils was he aware that the country was- 
upon the eve of a gigantic war, while before him lay a portentous future 
which no human faculties could forecast. 

His record during the next four years of civil war forms of itself a 
great history, a history so interwoven with, and so largely a part of, the 
most momentous events of modern times, that no adequate presentation 
of it can yet be made. 

In his stubborn hght at Bull Run he seems to have become conscious 
that both officers and men had much to learn, and that an experience 
wider than that of the garrison was necessary before decisive battles 
would be won. Although dubious of his own deserts, he found him- 
self announced in general orders as a Brigadier General. With an 
expressed desire to serve in a subordinate capacity rather than to hold 
a separate command, his inclination was gratified by an assignment to 
the Department of the Cumberland, with Brigadier General Robert 
Anderson in command. The harassment of the position soon drove 
General Anderson to relinquish his command, and General Sherman, as 
the senior officer, was left as the commander of the Department, though 
against his desire. While his preparations were going forward in Ken- 
tucky, Mr. Cameron, then Secretary of War, met him in Louisville for 
consultation, and seemed overwhelmed at General Sherman's declara- 
tion that he needed sixty thousand men for defense, and would need 
for offense two hundred thousand before he was through. 

In compliance with the request of General Sherman, he was relieved 
from the Department of the Cumberland, and transferred to the 
Department of the Missouri, reporting for duty to Major General 
H. W. Halleck. He assisted in the work of organizing in Missouri 
until the capture of Fort Donelson, when he was placed in command of 
the Fifth Division under General Grant. His command consisted of 
raw troops, to whom he had yet to give the discipline and steadiness 
necessary for effective operations. The rapidity with which this work 
was done is attested by their part in the battle of Shiloh, in which his 
command bore the brunt of the fight. General Grant, in his official 



I^O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

report, credits General Sherman individually with the successful issue 
of the day. Then came the campaign along the Mississippi that cul- 
minated in the surrender of Vicksburg. After the fall of Vicksburg he 
was advanced to the command of the Army of Tennessee, and con- 
ducted the masterly movements in that theater of war up to the spring 
of 1864, when he succeeded to the command of the Grand Military 
Division of the Mississippi, vacated by General Grant, who had been 
elevated to the command of the armies of the United States. This 
division comprised the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the 
Tennessee, and, for a time, Arkansas, and included about one hundred 
and fifty thousand men, under Thomas, McPherson, Scholield, Hooker, 
Howard, Stoneman, Kilpatrick, and others of almost equal fame. 

The movements that brought him to Atlanta, on a line defended by 
that masterly chieftain of the Confederacy, General Joseph E. Johnston ; 
his crushing blows on the brave, yet rash and injudicious Hood, who 
succeeded Johnston ; and then that wonder of civihzed war, "the march 
to the sea," which was the virtual, though not definitive, close of the war, 
must be given with that detail and elaboration that are only possible in 
volumes, to exhibit the clearness of the great conception, in which each 
act was consistent with the design. Christmas of 1864 saw him with 
Savannah in his hands. It was plain that the opening of the campaign 
of 1865 w^ould crush the Confederacy. General Grant received the 
surrender of General Lee and his arm}- of Northern Virginia, on the 
■9th of April 1865. Four days later, on the i8th, an informal agree- 
ment was entered into between General Sherman and General Joseph 
E. Johnston, for the capitulation of the Confederate Armies of the 
South and West under his command. The final terms were not con- 
cluded until the 26th. The basis first agreed upon was disapproved at 
Washington, and the fact has led to some acrimonious discussion. 
The truth is, that General Sherman, cut oft' from communication with 
Washington, acted under his latest instructions, and really reflected 
them in his act. But, in the meantime, the most starthng and atrocious 
•events had transpired at Washington ; Mr. Lincoln was assassinated ; 
Mr. Seward, Secretar}' of State, was nearly murdered in his bed; and 
Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, was aroused to a degree of fury and 
alarm that seems to have clouded and perverted his judgment. 

The war was over, and the soldiers of both armies felt that they 
could soon return to their homes. Following one grand closing pageant 
in the citv of Washington, General Sherman addressed to the Militar}- 
Division of the Mississippi his farevv^ell address. The scene in Wash- 



GEN. W. T. SHERMAN. I4I 

ington preceding the farewell, was one dear to the heart of a military 
man. His own words fix the picture in the mind : 

Sixty-five thousand men, in splendid physique, who had just completed a march of 
nearly two thousand miles in a hostile country, in good drill, and who realized that they 
were being closely scrutinized by their fellow-countrymen and by foreigners. Division 
after division passed, each commander of an army corps or division coming oi' the stand 
during the passage of his command, to be presented to the President, cabinet and specta- 
tors. The steadiness and firmness of the tread, the careful dress on the guides, the uni- 
form intervals between the companies, all eyes directly to the front, and the tattered 
and bullet-riven flags festooned with flowers, all attracted universal notice. Many good 
people, up to that time, had looked upon our Western army as a sort of a mob; but the 
world then saw, and recognized the fact, that it was an army in the proper sense — well 
organized, well commanded and disciplined — and there was no wonder that it had swept 
through the South like a tornado. For six hours and a half that strong tread resounded 
along Pennsylvania avenue, not a soul of that vast crowd of spectators left his place, 
and when the rear of the column had passed by, thousands of spectators still lingered to 
express their sense of confidence in the strength of a Government that could claim such 
an army." 

Up to August II, 1866, General Sherman held the command of 
the Militar}^ Division of the Mississippi, including Ohio, Missouri and 
Arkansas, with headquarters at St. Louis. On the 25th of July, 1866, 
by vote of Congress he was created Lieutenant-General of the United 
States Army. In November and December of that year he was sent on a 
special mission to Mexico. On the accession of Grant to the Presidency 
he became Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, 
and resided in Washington, until the reduction of the army to twenty- 
five thousand men so diminished the responsibility, as to enable him 
to consult his preferences and fix army headquarters and his residence 
in St. Louis. This change occurred in 1874. From November 187 1 
to October 1872, he was occupied in an extended trip through portions 
of the old world having a military and general interest. During this 
time he visited Madeira and Gibraltar, made the tour of Spain, Italy and 
Egypt; visited Constantinople, Sebastopol and the Caucasus, Moscow 
and St. Petersburg ; meandered through Poland, Austria, Prussia and 
Switzerland, and passed through Scotland and Ireland on the way 
home. His stay in Egypt extended over about a month. 

The most recent important event of his life is the publication of his 
Memoirs, in two volumes. In this he has departed from the usual rule 
of military men, and in doing so has performed an inestimable service. 
The sale of this work has been very large. It is clear, concise and 
direct, forcible in language, elegant in manner. The general orders 
and other communications which he issued from his headquarters dur- 



142 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ing his operations in the field, are in themselves a valuable addition to 
the history of the times, throwing light on many subjects not otherwise 
clear. 

Tall and slender in person, prompt and nervous in manner, he is 
decided without being forbidding. Entirely unassuming, he is as 
accessible at his headquarters as any business man in the city, and 
red-tape is evidently not to his liking. In conversation he is rapid and 
logical, illustrating his views with anecdote and comparison, w^ell- 
chosen and convincing. The great captain of a great people, he has 
yet never got beyond being one of the people. 




W'rticni Kiigiavui^ Ct»nlpAll^■ of SlXoiu 



^5^-^^ 




HON. B. GRATZ BROWN. 



MISSOURI is indebted to two classes of men for whatever of 
greatness and power she has attained as a State. The first 
were those hardy pioneers who came into wild and unculti- 
vated regions, laid out farms, founded towns, fought Indians, started 
new industries, conquered the forces of nature, overcame innumerable 
difficulties, and, finally, set civilization on its feet. The second were 
the leaders of political thought and action, the educators of public 
opinion, pioneers of great principles, reformers of public abuses, and 
men of courage and sagacity in times of political danger. To the latter 
class, and among its best and most distinguished men, Ex-Governor 
B. Gratz Brown belongs. He possesses many of the qualities which 
characterized those of the first class, viz : a strong will, unflinch- 
ing courage, independent opinions, and a desire to investigate and 
experiment with new plans and policies, for society and State, as they 
had to explore new territory-, and adopt new methods to conquer it. 
For a certain pei-iod of our history he was the leader of advanced 
thought, the recognized apostle of a better civilization, and the fearless 
and unrelenting foe of a system which he considered ruinous to the 
State and unjust to those through whom it was kept up. At that time 
the eyes of the country were upon him, and his name was upon every 
tongue. Since that time man}?^ pages of history have been made, in 
which he forms a prominent part ; and though the great questions which 
first brought him into notice have been settled, and he has formed new 
political alliances and adopted new views, he is still a leader of men 
and an originator of political measures. A brief review of his life will 
be found interesting. 

Ex-Governor Brown is of Virgmian ancestr3\ His grandfather, 
Hon. John Brown, was prominent in the early history of the country, 
and represented a western district of Virginia in the Congress of the 
United States. After his removal to Kentucky, he represented that 
State in the United State Senate. While in this latter position, he 
officiated as President ^7-0 ton., and wielded considerable influence. 



144 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

He was a warm supporter and personal friend of President Jefferson 
through Hfe. His death occurred at Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1837. 
Judge Mason Brown, the son of John Brown, and father of the subject 
of this sketch, was an eminent jurist, long held in great esteem by the 
people of Kentucky. On the maternal side we find ancestry no less 
distinguished. His mother's father, the Hon. Jesse Bledsoe, was an 
eminent advocate and jurist, and represented Kentucky in the Senate of 
the United States from 1813 to 1815. 

B. Gratz Brown was born in Lexington, Kentucky, May 28th, 1826. 
His early training was" in the schools of his native State, and his clas- 
sical course was begun at Transylvania University, Lexington, which he 
left in 1845, to enter Yale College. At this celebrated institution of 
learning he graduated in 1847. On returning to Kentucky he studied 
law, and was licensed to practice ; but, having a desire to commence 
life with new surroundings, he came to St. Louis in the autumn of 
1849, and, after due consideration, determined to make that city his 
home. He was admitted to practice, but after a year's experience, he 
turned his attention to other pursuits. The Free-soil movement had 
gained some strength in St. Louis, and, aided by the friends of Colonel 
Benton, was fast coming into power. Mr. Brown espoused the cause 
of free labor, and by his bold and earnest speeches greatly encouraged 
the friends of the new party. They honored him with a nomination 
for a seat in the Legislature in 1852, and he w^as elected by a fair 
majority. He had not then reached his tvvent3-sixth year, but was 
already regarded as a leader, possessing well-defined opinions and 
fixed principles. During his first term in the Legislature he advanced 
sentiments and enunciated truths which the party in power had not 
been accustomed to hear, and which greatl}^ disturbed their political 
equanimity. 

In the early part of 1854, an opportunity was presented to Mr. Brown 
to strengthen the positions he had taken, and to give a wider circulation 
to his views, by becoming editor of the Missouri Democrat. That 
paper had been published bv William McKee and William Hill, as a 
Benton organ. They purchased the Union, an anti-Benton paper, and, 
uniting the two, gave the editorial management to Mr. Brown. The 
wisdom of this course was soon apparent. The young editor found 
ample scope for his talents in discussing the exciting questions that 
came before the public at that time. The repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, the admission of Kansas and Nebraska, the encroach- 
ments of slavery into free territory, and the propriety of emancipating 



HON. B. GRATZ BROWN. I45 

the slaves in Missouri, were all brought under review, and treated in a 
masterly manner through the columns of his paper. The Missouri 
Democrat soon became a power in the land. It was cursed by Pro- 
slavery men, commended by Free-soilers, and read by all. 

Mr. Brown was re-elected to the Legislature, and took a bolder and 
more prominent position than ever. In 1857, he delivered a speech 
which aroused the indignation of the people against the exactions of the 
slave-power, and gave rise to the fiercest political contests in every part 
of the State. In the Legislature, and in his journal, he continued to 
preach the gospel of freedom with intrepid courage and masterly 
eloquence. He and his Free-soil associates were in the minority, but 
were undismayed. Failing to subdue the fearless editor by argument, 
he was often menaced with personal violence. On one occasion he was 
involved in a duel with Hon. Thomas C. Reynolds, a Pro-slavery 
Democrat, and came out of the contest with a shot in one knee, from 
the eflects of which he suffered for several years. 

The views of the Free-soilers were indorsed by the people of 
St. Louis on more than one occasion ; but the party met with defeat in 
the State. There is no doubt, however, but that the efforts made by 
Gratz Brown and his friends at this early day created a sentiment 
which, a few years later, strengthened the Union cause and prevented 
secession. 

In 1861. when the civil war burst forth, Mr. Brown was ready for 
the emergency. He entered with zeal into the work of organizing 
regiments for the war, and was one of the first to tender a regiment of 
volunteers for the three months' service. The attack and capture of 
Camp Jackson in May 1861, carried out, in full consultation with him 
and Colonel Blair, by General Lyon, electrified the Union, and fixed 
the attitude of the State. Shortly after the capture of Camp Jackson, 
Colonel Brown took the field at the head, of his regiment, and, through- 
out Southwest Missouri, shared with his men the dangers, privations 
aud fatigues of the campaign. After his term of service had expired, 
he volunteered his services to General Curtis, and also assisted in the 
organization of the State militia. 

When a division in the ranks of the Union men occurred in 1862, 
Colonel Brown favored the side of the immediate Emancipationists and 
Radicals. He recognized the Germans, who were friendly to Fremont, 
as better friends of the Union than many who denounced them, and 
therefore he stood by them. In return, Germans, as well as other 
Republicans, acknowledged him as their leader in the emancipation 
movement. 
10 



1^6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

When the Legislature met in the winter of 1862-3, the Radical 
Emancipationists, in caucus, nominated Gratz Brown for United States 
Senator, and resolved to remain true to him until the}' had secured his 
election. They were in a minority at first, and rather than compromise 
for the election of one of less radical views, the election was postponed 
until the meeting of the adjourned session in the winter of 1863-4. T'he 
progress of the war had educated -the feelings of several of the Union 
members, and when the Legislature met in joint session an agreement 
was entered into between the friends of Hon. John B. Henderson and 
Colonel Brown, by which both were elected to the vacancies which 
existed in the Senate of the United States. This contest was a most 
excitino- and bitter one. All the acts of Colonel Brown's life were 
canvassed and criticised by his enemies, and his utterances were used 
both for and against him. No man, perhaps, ever received so thorough 
an investigation, unless one arraigned for some crime. The fact that 
his friends held together so long shows how strongly attached to him 
they were, and the fact, also, that he came out triumphantly and 
unscathed, shows what kind of metal he was m_ade of. 

Durinp' his term in the United States Senate, Governor Brown served 
on the Committees on Military Affairs, Pacific Railroad, Indian Afiairs, 
Public Buildings and Grounds, Printing, and as chairman of the Com- 
mittee on- Contingent Expenses after the death of Senator Foote. He 
advocated several measures for the benefit of his own State and the 
people of the West, and zealously supported the war measures of the 
administration. In the hour of victory, however, he favored a gener- 
ous treatment of the vanquished. His speeches, while in the Senate, 
were regarded as finished productions. . They displayed force of 
thought, research, and broad views of statesmanship, and were listened 
to with marked attention.. Before the term for which he was elected 
had expired. Governor Brown's health failed, and he deemed it his 
duty to tender his resignation. Retiring from the Senate, he engaged 
in private and professional pursuits, carrying into daily life the love of 
harmony, tolerance and equal rights, he had so long advocated in 
public. He was not, however, allowed to remain in retirement. Obey- 
ing the call of thousands of his fellow-citizens, he accepted the nomi- 
nation for Governor of Missouri, and, sustained by a coalition of 
Liberal Republicans and Democrats, was triumphantly elected. The 
issue at this election was the removal of all disabilities from those who 
had participated in rebellion. A large number of Republicans, while 
professing to be in favor of removing these restrictions, refused to 



HON. B. GRATZ BROWN. I47 

pledge themselves to do it by resolution at the party convention in 1870. 
Others who were willing to make this a plank in their platform, saw no 
hope of coming to an agreement on the subject, and withdrew from the 
main body of the convention. They organized a separate convention, 
and put a ticket in the field with B. Gratz Brown at the head. Gov- 
ernor McClurg was nominated by the straight Republicans in opposi- 
tion. The vote was as follows: For Brown, 104,286; for McClurg, 
62,369; majority, 41,917. 

Many of those who supported Governor Brown at this election had 
no thought of leaving the Republican party, and, when the contest 
was over, united with their old friends who had supported McClurg, 
in keeping up the regular organization. But Governor Brown did not 
join them. During his administration he appointed Democrats to office 
and generally affiliated with the Democratic party. 

At the end of his term as Governor of the State, in 1872, he again 
retired to private life, devoting his attention to business affairs. On 
May 3, 1872, Governor Brown became the Liberal Republican can- 
didate for Vice-President of the United States, on the ticket with 
Horace Greeley for President — these nominations having been made 
at the National Convention of Liberal Republicans of the United 
States which met at Cincinnati in May. The first plank in the plat- 
form of that Convention read as follows : "We recognize the equality 
of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government 
in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to 
all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or 
political." Governor Brown accepted the nomination and made a 
vigorous canvass, but with the result so well known. 

Since his retirement from the executive office. Governor Brown has 
devoted himself actively to business interests. For some years he had 
been a large owner of street railroad stock, and it is to him that the cit}^ 
of St. Louis is indebted for the construction and good management of 
some of the best lines in operation. His investments in real estate and 
other property were judicious, and at the present time he is in the 
enjo3^ment of a handsome income. 

Throughout his career Governor Brown has exhibited marked ability 
as a party leader. A man of strong convictions himself, he fully 
appreciates the power of moving men with the highest attainable force, 
by arousing in them a like conviction of the correctness of a position or 
the verity of a principle. He combines individuals into masses by 
appealing to their higher emotions and intelligence instead of selfish 



148 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

motives. He enunciates a principle, challenges opposition, assumes 
the leadership, calls for supporters and followers, and leaves the details 
of party organization to others. He rarely interferes in the contests of 
individuals for minor positions, and in a contest loses no adherents by 
arousing individual animosity among his followers. His capacity as an 
executive officer was shown in his administration of two years, carrying 
into practical operation the principles upon which he made his success- 
ful campaign. Missouri soon began to reap the benefits. B}' a cau- 
tious, moderate and firm course, he brought the people of the State to a 
recognition of the fact that true republicanism can alone make a State 
prosperous, and that this can exist only where political equality is 
acknowledged and the rights of every one respected. He inaugurated 
an era of good-fellowship, and to his administration is due the rapid 
disappearance in Missouri of the ills consequent upon civil war. 

Governor Brown is a smooth and vigorous writer. He uses the 
purest and simplest English, now and then indulging in classical deriva- 
tives as way marks, but generally employing such words and modes of 
expression as will convey the most meaning. His messages while 
Governor, and his letters on questions of public policy, are models of 
conciseness, perspicacity and sound reasoning. He speaks in the same 
wa}^, and can say more in half an hour than most orators can in an 
hour. 

The financial problems of the day have recently called him out in a 
letter, so full of sound and convincing argument, that but little can be 
said by his opponents in reply. 

He is yet in the vigor of his physical and intellectual manhood, and 
without doubt will let the country hear from him whenever important 
questions arise. 




%;■ '^inrEEM.n & :y.~ i?rM-a-"^ '-' ^ 



? 




HON. CARL SCHURZ, 
SEH^JOR FROM MISS OURI 



HON. CARL SCHURZ. 



N 



O citizen of Missouri, born in a foreign countr}^, has ever 



attained such a degree of political influence, or occupied so 
prominent a position before the country, as Hon. Carl Schurz. 
Indeed, but few possessing the advantages of American birth and 
education have gained a stronger hold upon the admiration and respect 
of the better class of citizens than he. He has not, however, made use 
of the means emplo3^ed by demagogues to gain influence and position ; 
he has won both position and reputation by his own talent and merits. 
Carl Schurz was born at Liblar, near Cologne, Germany, March 2, 
1829. His parents, though not wealthy, were in good circumstances, 
and highly respectable. Thej^ placed their son in the gymnasium of 
Cologne, where he passed through the full course of studies preparatory 
to entering the university. At the age of seventeen he entered the 
University of Bonn, where he remained two years, taking a course of 
history, philosophy and ancient languages. On the outbreak of the 
revolution of 1848, Schurz, with other students, took an active interest 
in the prevailing agitation, and having become acquainted with Gottfried 
Kinkel, then professor of rhetoric at the University, he joined him in 
the publication of a liberal newspaper, which was conducted wholly by 
Schurz while Kinkel was absent as a member of the Prussian Legisla- 
ture. In the spring of 1849, having made an unsuccessful attempt to 
produce an insurrection at Bonn, both Kinkel and Schurz were obliged 
to flee, and betook themselves to the States called the Palatinate, where 
a body of revolutionary troops was already organized. He entered the 
military service again in a few months as Adjutant to Gustav Nikolaus 
Tiedemann (son of the great Professor of Medicine), and participated in 
the defense of Rastadt. That fortress was obliged to capitulate, and 
Schurz became a prisoner. His commander, Tiedemann, was con- 
demned to death and shot August 11, 1849, ^^^ Schurz succeeded in 
escaping from the casemates of the fortress to Switzerland, b}- the 
following device : He concealed himself for three days and nights, 
without food, in a sewer, through which he passed to the river Rhine, 



150 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

which he crossed and arrived in Switzerland at the beginning of August, 
where he remained in seclusion at Zurich until the following May. His 
friend Kinkel, in the meantime, had been captured, condemned to 
twenty years imprisonment, and shut up in the fortress of Spandau. 
After long correspondence with the wife of Kinkel, Schurz determined 
to undertake his rescue, and for this purpose made his way secretly back 
to Germany in Ma}^ 1850, spending much time in preparation in Cologne 
and Berlin, and remaining in the latter city three months endeavoring to 
establish relations with the guards who watched the prisoner. The res- 
cue was accomplished in the night of November 6, 1850, Kinkel's cell 
being broken open and he brought out upon the roof of the prison, 
whence he was successfully lowered to the ground. The scheme was 
a bold one, and it was hinted, without good reason however, that the 
Government must have winked at it. The fugitives escaped the same 
night across the frontier into Mecklenburg, and thence made their way 
to Rostock, and after remaining concealed there for some time, took 
passage in a small schooner for Leith, where they arrived December 
first. Schurz then went to Paris, where he remained as a correspondent 
of German journals until June 185 1, when he went to London, and 
taught music and languages till July 1852. About this time he married 
the daughter of a rich merchant of Hamburg, Miss Margarette Meyer, 
and shortly afterward came to America, landing in Philadelphia. He 
remained in that city two or three years, familiarizing himself with the 
English language, the laws of the country, its history, etc., and then 
removed to Watertown, Wisconsin, where he had bought a farm. 

In the presidential canvass of 1856, Mr. Schurz became known as an 
orator in the German language. In 1857, he was nominated by the 
RepubHcan State Convention as a candidate for the office of Lieutenant- 
Governor of Wisconsin, but failed of election. / 

In 1858, on the occasion of the contest between Mr. Douglas and 
Mr. Lincoln for the United States Senatorship of Illinois, he delivered 
his first English speech, which was widely republished by the journals 
in various parts of the country. 

In the spring of 1859, he was invited to the celebration of Jefferson's 
anniversary in Boston, and delivered a speech on Americanism in 
Faneuil Hall. He was at this time living at Milwaukee, engaged in the 
practice of law, but during the winter of i859-'6o, frequently lectured 
before lyceums and literary societies in various parts of the country. 
Mr. Schurz was a delegate from Wisconsin to the Republican National 
Convention which met in Chicago in June i860, and exercised consid- 



HON. CARL SCHURZ. I5I 

erable influence, especially in securing the adoption of that portion of 
the platform which related to citizens of foreign birth. During the 
canvass which followed, he was constantly employed in speaking 
throughout the Northern States, both in the English and German lan- 
guages, his principal speeches being one on "The Irrepressible Con- 
flict," delivered in St. Louis, and one entitled "The Bill of Indictment 
Against Douglas," delivered in New York. After the inauguration of 
President Lincoln, Mr. Schurz was offered the mission to Spain, 
accepted it, and left the country for Madrid during the summer of 1861. 

In December iS6i, as he read the news from the United States, the 
war fever seized him, and he wrote to the President asking to be 
relieved from diplomatic duties, that he might join the army of the 
Union. The desire was granted, and a commission of Brigadier- 
General of volunteers was tendered him. He entered the army in 
Sigel's corps in time to distinguish himself at the second battle of Bull 
Run, and fought bravely also at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 
where he won the rank of Major-General. It should also be mentioned 
that after his return from Spain, he delivered in New York Citv, March 
6, 1862, a speech on the necessity of abolishing slavery in order to 
restore the national unity, which was regarded by many as the ablest 
of his public discourses. 

During the summer of 1863, General Schurz was ordered to join 
General Sherman at Chattanooga, and on his arrival there, was placed 
in command of a division, which position he held to the close of the 
war. 

In the latter part of 1864, he obtained a short leave of absence, to 
make speeches in favor of Mr. Lincoln's re-election. His voice had 
the same power and attraction as in the campaign of i860, and it is, 
perhaps, owing in some measure to his influence, that many of the 
Germans were induced to leave the independent movement, made at 
Cleveland against Mr. Lincoln, and support the regular nomination. 

After the assassination of Lincoln, President Johnson sent General 
Schurz through the Southern States on a tour of inspection, to gain 
information as to the social and political condition of the people. 
Schurz traveled in all parts of the South, conversed with people of 
all classes, and made a complete report of what he saw and heard, 
and suggesting such remedies for existing evils as in his judgment 
seemed proper. Johnson was not pleased with the report, as it con- 
flicted with the "policy" he had marked out, and he tried to suppress 
it. The newspapers, however, gave it to the people, and General 
Schurz was sustained. 



152 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1866 he removed to Detroit, to take charge of the Daily Post 
newspaper, but remained only a few months. In the spring of 1867 he 
took up his residence in St. Louis, bought an interest in the Wcstliche 
Post, and became a principal editor. General Schurz was cordiall}^ 
welcomed to Missouri by the Republican party, and from the beginning 
of his residence here, took an active part in politics. 

At the National Republican Convention of 1868, he was a delegate, 
was chosen as temporary chairman, and had much to do with construct- 
ing the platform. He took the stump for the Republican ticket during 
the summer of '68, and spoke with his accustomed vigor and eloquence 
in many of the principal cities of the Union. 

In Januar}' 1869, the Legislature of Missouri met in joint session 
to elect a United States Senator. General Schurz was presented to the 
party caucus as a candidate for the nomination, and although strongly 
opposed by Charles D. Drake, then holding a seat as Senator, and 
who came from Washington especially to defeat him, was nominated 
and afterwards elected b}^ the joint session. His German friends 
throughout the country hailed his election to the Senate with signs of 
delight, and congratulations from all classes poured in upon him. He 
did not have the pleasure of Mr. Drake's society, however, as a 
colleague in the Senate, for that gentleman soon after was appointed 
presiding judge of the Court of Claims of the District of Columbia, 
and resigned his seat. 

General Schurz' career in the United States Senate was a brilliant 
and successful one. He pursued a moderate course, and disagreed 
with the party in power on man}^ questions ; but his opposition was 
manly, and his reasons for action were clearly and eloquently set forth 
to the countr}^ He became an intimate friend of Sumner, and on 
most of the leading questions agreed with him. While many Repub- 
licans regretted that General Schurz opposed the President, they 
conceded the fact that he was governed by high and disinterested 
motives, and displayed courage on all occasions. His speeches were 
prepared with much care, and gave evidence of scholarship and 
research. Generally, when it was announced that he was to speak, 
the galleries were crowded, and his fellow-senators paid the most 
respectful attention to what he had to say. Though claiming still to 
be a Republican in all essential principles, he did not hesitate to defeat 
measures introduced into Congress whenever they appeared to him 
injurious to the public interests. 

These motives controlled him in his course in Missouri in 1870, when 



HON. CARL SCHURZ. 



0.5 



he favored the removing of disfranchisement from those who had par- 
ticipated in the rebelhon. He must have known that placing pohtical 
power again in such hands would hurl him from office, which indeed 
was the result ; and yet he did not hesitate to join in the liberal move- 
ment to secure enfranchisement for that class. He was bitterly 
denounced for his course on this occasion, and still later, in 1872, for 
the support he gave to the National Liberal movement. He was 
chosen president of the Cincinnati Convention, and afterward made 
speeches for the ticket there nominated. 

During the summer of 1874, General Schurz aided in organizing the 
People's Reform party in Missouri, for the purpose of defeating the 
Democrac}' then in power. He was the author of a large portion of 
the platform which the Convention adopted, and took the stump for 
William Gentry, candidate for Governor, traveling over a large portion 
of the State and making eloquent and fearless speeches. The ticket 
received a large vote, but the Republicans in some sections of the State 
were indifferent, and the movement was unsuccessful. General Schurz, 
at the close of the campaign, resumed his editorial duties. The Legis- 
lature elected General Cockrell, an ex-rebel, to fill his place in the 
United States Senate, and he gracefully retired. After a short lecturing 
tour in the Northern States, he made a visit with his family to Europe. 
But the coming winter will undoubtedly find him busy again filling 
engagements with lecture committees, and performing editorial work, 
for which he has a decided liking. 

He is in the enjoyment of mental and ph3^sical vigor, and is destined 
still to fill an important place in the country's history. Certain it is, 
that no great political movement will be made in the country without 
his influence either for or against it. 



GEORGE P. PLANT. 



CA)M0NG prominent names to be found upon the list of the city's 
X JL honored dead, is that of George Poignand Plant, a man who, 
during his long and active career in St. Louis, enjoyed in a 
marked degree the respect and confidence of his fellow-men, and dying 
left behind him a name for business integrity, uprightness and moral 
purity, to be emulated by all who would aspire to a place of honor in 
the community, or to the proud distinction of being "a man amongst 
men." 

He was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, March 23, 1814. He was 
of English and French parentage, was the third of twelve children, 
and was the oldest son. His father came from England in the cotton 
interest; he was a man of matiy scientific attainments, settled in Lan- 
caster, where he erected cotton mills, and was the inventor of many 
important improvements in this branch of industry, which has since 
grown to such gigantic proportions all over the Union, but more 
especiall}' in the New England States. It was in this quiet New 
England village, and with the peculiar surroundings of the da}', that 
George received his early education, and where his mind was first turned 
toward those pursuits which governed his after-life. 

His father was the possessor of quite an extensive library, for the 
most part composed of scientific and mathematical works, where young 
George found an ample field to satisfy his early literary cravings, and 
where he soon formed those tastes for scientific studies which were the 
main-spring of his future success. His father's factory also presented 
an opportunity of practically applying the knowledge he gained by 
study, and rendered him familiar with machinery and its workings. 

In such families it was customary for the sons to choose for them- 
selves some profession, and, in accordance with his earh'^ aspirations 
and inclinations, George chose civil engineering, and immediately 
entered into a practical school of railroad building, serving under 
Major Whistler on a road then being built between Worcester and 
Springfield. The far West was then being opened up, and held out 



156 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

extra inducements to young men in search of fortune. Different 
branches of railroads were being pushed forward in the States of Ohio, 
Indiana and Ilhnois, and the shriek of the iron horse, for the first time, 
was awakening the echoes of the broad prairies and dense forests of 
those, to-day, densely populated and thriving States. With that spirit of 
enterprise which can be found in the early experience of most of tha 
remarkable men of the West, young Plant turned his face toward the 
setting sun, and, in 1835, went to Kentucky, where an uncle, Daniel 
R. Poignand, had married and settled down, intending to make this 
State the scene of his labors in the practice of his profession. He 
soon, however, removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, and accepted the 
position of chief engineer on the Northern Cross Railroad, which he 
surveyed and built — the first railroad in that portion of the West. 

The following extract, taken from the columns of the Missouri 
JRe-publican, will serve to show, and in a most forcible manner, what 
relation Mr. Plant held toward the tirst railroad ever built in Illinois : 

"The first Locomotive in Illinois. — Illinois now has 5,725 miles of railroad. The 
first rail was laid at Meredosia Maj 9, 1S3S, on the first division of what was called the 
Northern Cross Railroad. The first locomotive arrived at Meredosia September 6, 1838, 
in the steamboat Chariton. This pioneer locomotive was built by Grosvenor, Ketchum 
& Co., at Patterson, New Jersey. It was put on the track, of which eight miles were laid, 
on the 8th day of November, 183S. The civil engineer, under whose supervision the road 
was built, and who then and there brought the 'iron horse' into harness — the first in the 
Mississisippi Valley — was George P. Plant, late President of the Merchants' Exchange, 
and one of the first citizens of St. Louis. 

" On that engine, which ran eight miles and returned, were Governor Duncan, of Illi- 
nois, Murray McConnell, State Commissioner, James Dunlap and Thomas T. January, 
contractoi-s, Charles Collins and Miron Leslie, of St. Louis, and the Chief Engineer of 
the road, George P. Plant. 

"There were then less than 2,000 miles of railroad in all the United States. There are 
now over 60,000. Yet the first locomotive of the Mississippi Valley only put itself in 
motion thirty-three years ago last November." 

In Jacksonville Mr. Plant married his first wife, Matilda W. January, 
sister of D. A. January and T. T. January, who came to St. Louis 
some time afterward, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Plant 
followed, and in 1840 he estabhshed the Plant Mills, the name of the 
firm being George P. Plant & Co. Under his own personal supervision 
the business began to assume gigantic proportions. His brother, Samuel 
Plant, who had been a partner in the business, died in 1866. Mr. Plant 
then took in his son G. J., and made him a partner; and subsequently 
George H., son of Samuel Plant, was admitted to the business. Mr. 
Plant always aimed at a superiority in this branch of industry, and bv 



GEORGEP. PLANT. 157 

hard study and the closest apphcation to the business in all its ramifica- 
tions, brought mining in St. Louis to its present state of perfection. x\s 
a manufacturer of flour, he stood in the front ranks of the millers of 
America, and his diflerent brands, manufactured in St. Louis, were 
quoted in all the principal American and European markets. 

He was the inventor and patentee of many improvements in the 
machinery for milling purposes, some of which are now in general use 
throughout the country, and are of much benefit to the business. He 
was a man of many scientific attainments, and an ardent student up to 
the period of his death. Nor did he confine himself entirely to milling. 
A far-seeing and progressive man, he took a prominent part in getting 
up the present system of water works, and was of great assistance as 
chairman of the Meteorological Committee of the Exchange, in sug- 
gesting reports of the rise and fall of Western rivers, and other subjects 
connected with the Signal Service. He was the originator and earnest 
advocate of many plans for the improvement and beautifying of the city. 
He labored, not selfishly, but for the common good of all. It was his 
great desire to introduce the best species of wheat among the farmers, 
and to raise the standards of the St. Louis flours. 

In 1870 Mr. Plant went to Europe, principally for his health and 
pleasure, but returned with an increased stock of knowledge, the 
result of close observation. During this trip he studied the European 
system of milling, the qualities of wheat, and the flour produced. He 
secured the government plans and reports on the boulevards and public 
parks of Paris, which he presented to the Mercantile Library, for 
public reference. In all his works he never lost sight of his own city 
and her welfare and advancement. 

Mr. Plant had been twice married. By his first wife he had two 
sons, George Janvier Plant and Louis Poignand Plant. His second 
wife was Miss Martha S. Douthitt, daughter of the late Robert H. 
Douthitt, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, whom he married in 1863. His 
first wife died in 1859. 

During his life Mr. Plant held many offices of trust and responsi- 
bility — offices to which he was raised by the voice of his associates in 
the mercantile world. He never sought political preferment, seeking 
rather the more substantial honors of trade and commerce. He was 
president of the Merchants' Exchange, of the American Central Insur- 
ance Company, of the Millers' National Convention and of St. Luke's 
Hospital ; he was also a director in the Merchants' Exchange, in the 
Bank of Commerce, in the Mutual Life Insurance Company, and in the 



1^8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Plant Seed Company. He was also chairman of the Meteorological 
Committee of the Merchants' Exchange. His death took place Feb- 
ruary 24, 1875. 

Mr. Plant was delicately constituted, of a modest and retiring dispo- 
sition, but at the same time a man of sterling integrity, indomitable 
will, untiring energy, and broad charity. Pleasant and affable in all 
the commercial and social relations of life, always feeling a keen inter- 
est in the city of his adoption, and ever willing to extend a helping 
hand to assist her advancement, he was one of St. Louis' most valuable 
citizens, and died regretted by the entire community. 



ROBERT E. CARR. 



IT would appear that many of the leading spirits of trade and enter- 
prise, to whom St. Louis is greatly indebted for the high position 
she now holds in the commercial world, came originally from that 
portion of the Union which some historians have seen lit to call " the 
dark and bloody ground," — Kentucky — and such is the case with the 
subject of the present sketch. 

Robert E. Carr was born in Lexington, Kentucky, August 8, 1827. 
His father was a farmer, and young Robert enjoyed the benefits of a 
common school education. In 1847, when twenty years of age, Mr. 
Carr came to St. Louis in search of employment and fortune. He 
engaged as clerk in an iron foundry, at a salary of $400 per annum. 
In this position, the eminent business qualifications which have character- 
ized his mature manhood began to manifest themselves, and at the end 
of two years, so firmly had he established himself in the esteem of his 
employers, that he was offered and accepted a partner's interest in the 
business, and the firm became Dowdell, Carr & Co. The business was 
conducted with great success by Mr. Carr until 1856, when, on account 
of failing health, he was obliged to retire from active business pursuits 
for a 3^ear, in order to recuperate an overtaxed constitution. 

But a responsible position soon claimed his well-known business 
abilities, and after being restored to health, he became cashier of the 
Exchange Bank, in which position of trust he remained two years, 
when he was elected president of the same institution, conducting its 
financial transactions and business affairs in a manner to bring success 
to the bank and credit to himself. 

In 1868, Mr. Carr, with his family, made a tour of Europe, spending 
a year in the principal commercial centres of the Old World, visiting 
all the points of interest, and enjoying a much needed relaxation from 
years of close application to business. On his return to America, 
Mr. Carr took the contract of building the Denver Pacific Railroad, 
which he completed in June 1870. In 1871, he was elected president 
of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and the two roads have been run under 



l6o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

one management. Mr. Carr was also president of the Missouri, Kansas 
and Texas Railroad, and it may be said that he has been president of 
more lines of railroads than any man west of the Mississippi. 

Mr. Carr is a man of high administrative abilities, and tine social 
and business qualities, which latter have made him thousands of friends 
and well-wishers, to whom his success in life has been a source 
of unalloyed pleasure. In every office of trust and responsibility 
he has been called on to fill, Mr. Carr has invariably given the utmost 
satisfaction to his friends and fellow-men, and his fellow-citizens never 
had occasion to regret the confidence placed in him. In all the rela- 
tions of life, his strict integrity and purity of life have been a shining 
example for the young, and have commanded the respect and unquali- 
fied esteem of the old. Mr. Carr is still in the vigor of his manhood, 
surrounded by ample means to make life an easy battle, with a wide 
field of usefulness at his command, with ample opportunities of gaining 
fresh laurels ere he is called upon to lay down the cross and take 
up the crown. 




^^pi^y-^'i^^^-^' '-f. 



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^ 



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CAPTAIN JOHN J. ROE. 



CAPTAIN JOHN J. ROE, for many years one of the most promi- 
nent merchants of the West, was born April i8, 1809, near Buffalo, 
New York. In 1815, his father moved westward, remaining for 
a short period at Cincinnati, Ohio, also in Kentucky, and lastly to 
Rising Sun, Indiana, where he purchased a farm and owned a ferry, 
and where he died in 1834. 

Here young Roe enjoyed the benefits of the local country school, in 
the meantime assisting his father in the management of the farm and 
conducting the ferry, which was a source of income to the family. 
Scanty as were the scholastic facilities of the period, young Roe, how- 
ever, obtained the foundation of a good common-school English educa- 
tion, and his contact with the world afterward, coupled with his natural 
and successful genius for business, made him a greater power in the 
land than if he had been the recipient of classical insti-uction. 

Two years previous to his father's death, feeling the farm and ferry 
to be too contracted a field for his ambitions, Mr. Roe went to Cincin- 
nati and engaged in steamboating, beginning at the lowest position, and 
rapidly working his way up until he filled the most trustworthy, as cap- 
tain ; and on one occasion making a large profit for his employers by 
acting as supercargo to Jacksonville, Tennessee. 

Captain Roe, by his ability, zeal and sound judgment, soon won the 
confidence and respect of the business community, and became a suc- 
cessful trader and commander, running some of the most magnificent 
packets on the river, and at one time doing a lucrative business on Green 
River, Kentucky. He built several fine boats, and having amassed a 
considerable fortune retired from the river business in 1844, '^^^ 
removed to St. Louis. Here he became engaged in the commission 
and pork packing business, and the names of Hewett, Roe & Co., 
Hewett, Roe & Kercheval, and finally John J. Roe & Co., became well 
known to all the business world of the West, South and East. 

His career in St. Louis was one of continued success and advance- 
ment. A strong Union man during the war, and being one of the 
u 



l62 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

largest pork packers in the United States, he gained the confidence of 
both the civil and militar}^ authorities, and though he greatly increased 
his capital during the war, the breath of suspicion never arose that he 
had ever been dishonorable in the slightest particular in any of his 
numerous government contracts. A remark made by General W. T. 
Sherman but a few months ago, to a friend of Captain Roe, illustrates 
the esteem in which he was held by all who knew him. Said the 
General : "John J. Roe was one of the purest men it was ever my lot to 
meet with." 

Business was his life, nay, even his pleasure. During his business 
career in St. Louis, he had been connected in various capacities with 
almost every existing public enterprise and corporation. His fellow- 
citizens had honored him in a marked and signal manner. He had 
been president of the Merchants' Union Exchange, president of the 
Atlantic and Mississippi Steamship Company, a director in the Ohio 
and Mississippi Railroad Company, and on the day of his death was 
president of the State Savings Association and president of the United 
States Fire and Marine Insurance Company. He was also first 
president and one of the organizers of the Life Association of America, 
vice-president of the Memphis and St. Louis Packet Company, a 
director in the National Bank of the State of Missouri, the Illinois 
and St. Louis Bridge Company, the St. Charles Bridge Company, the 
Illinois and St. Louis Railroad and Coal Compan}-, and the North Mis- 
souri Railroad Company. 

For many years he carried on an extensive business, in connection 
with Captain Nick Wall, in Montana, and the Diamond R. Transporta- 
tion Line, is one of the important interests in the Territory to this day. 
In all his ideas. Captain John J. Roe was intensely public-spirited and 
progressive ; he took a deep interest in the growth and prosperity of 
St. Louis. The great steel bridge across the Mississippi claimed his 
attention, and he gave his money liberally and threw the whole of his 
great influence into the project. 

An idea of the estimation in which his services were held as director 
of the National Bank of the State of Missouri, of the North Missouri 
Railroad Company, and of the Illinois and St. Louis Bridge Company, 
can perhaps be more adequately conveyed by quoting from the admi- 
rable remarks of Captain Jas. B. Eads at the Merchants' Exchange on 
the occasion of his death, than anything we might attempt to say in this 
connection. Captain Eads said : 



JOHN J. ROE. 163 

For more than three years past I have sat almost daily by his side in the directory of 
your largest bank, and whilst receiving instruction through his counsel and experience, I 
learned to admire, I might say to wonder at, the rare judgment, brilliant business qualifi- 
cations, and liberal ideas with which he was endowed. Within a few brief hours, I left 
that board surrounded with his accustomed associates still bowed down in sadness for his 
death, and my poor words can but feebly tell you how highly they honored him living, 
and how deeply they mourn him dead. Alas ! not by them alone will his able counsels be 
missed, for when we turn to the many other important public and private enterprises that 
were confided either partially or wholly to his guidance, we feel how irreparable is our 
loss. His sagacity, nerve, and public spirit prompted him to extend a helping hand to 
almost every worthy movement of the day, and when that hand was given, it seemed as 
though its magic touch insured success. 

The iron bands which stretch out to the fertile plains of Kansas and Iowa, and bring 
to your doors the rich products of the West and North, owe their extension and com- 
pletion, in great part, to the material aid and judicious action of him who now lies 
cold in death. 

When the few enterprising men who were striving to span your majestic river with a 
bridge, felt that the darkest hours of the undertaking were upon them, when they thought 
disaster and defeat were close at hand, they sought the aid of him whose cheerful voice 
will br heard among them no more forever Their appeal was not in vain. His aid 
came, not in meagre pittance, but in the form of a pledge to pay toward its construction 
one hundred thousand dollars in cash ; whilst the very fact that the enterprise was 
approved by his judgment, was worth to it half a million more. In the management 
and control of these three great public institutions, * * * jj-^ each of which he was so 
largely interested, his clear head and generous heart can never be replaced. 

The last work of Mr. Roe's hand was the Life Association of 
America. When, in 1868, the projector of that already mammoth 
institution, developed the scheme to the capitalists of St. Louis, one 
of the first prominent men who grasped the idea and comprehended 
its power, was John J. Roe. His name and influence were all-power- 
ful in giving the undertaking life, and, as all our readers know, as soon 
as the corporation was formed, he became its president, a position he 
held until his death. Mr. Roe saw in the Life Association a project 
commensurable with his own broad intellect ; a fairness to match his 
own innate integrity ; a combination of independence and philan- 
thropy in harmon}' with his own views of ameliorating the condition of 
his fellow-man, without crushing his manhood or doing violence to his 
sensibilities ; and when he put his shoulder to it, all his great commer- 
cial and financial influence was wielded in its behalf with an enei^gy 
and force which knows no barriers and inevitabl}^ achieves success. It 
mattered not to him that the combined powers of all the other life 
insurance companies were pitted against him ; it mattered not that the 
most venal portions of the press, and the most worthless members of the 
agency fraternity were hired to misrepresent and villify his company ; 
he believed that he was right, and his eflbrts to make others believe so 



164 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

too, knew no limit ; and notwithstanding that his life was cut off so 
suddenly, and within less than two years after the association was 
started, he lived to see its standard planted in half of the States of the 
Union ; its enemies defeated or turned into friends, and the leading 
actuaries and insurance men in the country acknowledging its superior- 
ity and seeking identification with it. It was thus that the success which 
followed him through his whole life, clung to him to his grave, making 
his last achievement his greatest as well as his best. 

Mr. Roe was a man of a sunny disposition, always cheerful and 
happy. Easily approached, he always found time to listen to the plea 
of the humblest, and was careful to do justice to the poor as well as 
the rich. Particularly was he the friend of the young man. Let him 
but see that a young man had ability and was deserving, and he never 
let an opportunity pass to do that man a favor. His charities were 
numerous and unostentatious. 

Mr. Roe was well adapted to the age in which he lived, and the 
characteristics of this people. He made it his own, and action, 
unceasing and untiring, became the ruling principle of his life. It was 
this that gave an impetus toward certain success to every enterprise with 
which he became identified. He also appreciated the consideration 
which the possession of wealth secures ; he accumulated a princely 
fortune ; but it can hardly be said that its acquisition was the chief aim 
of his life. He did not indulge in any of the absurd follies too often 
perpetrated by the rich ; to him, riches were not the object of life, but 
merely the means of doing good, and pushing forward with all his 
mighty energy the speedier development, furtherance and completion of 
the great enterprises that his enlarged intellect deemed calculated to 
redound to the benefit, and promote the present and future greatness, of 
the city of his adoption. 

In 1837, Captain Roe was married to Miss Wright, daughter of 
Thomas Wright, Esq. He was a genial, social man, and when each 
evening he quitted the busy city for his beautiful suburban home, he 
cast business entirely aside, and became the pleasant, social family 
gentleman whom a stranger would have little dreamed had carried such 
a volume of business in his head during the day. 

In politics. Captain Roe, though a Union man, was always conserva- 
tive. At one time owning slaves himself, he believed the principle 
wrong, and liberated them ; and while his sympathies were with the 
South, he still did not believe in the separation of the States. After 
the war, he believed in forgetting the past, and building up the South 
in the future. 



JOHN J . ROE. 165 

Captain Roe's death was a shock to the entire community. On the 
14th of February 1870, in the midst of apparent robust health, he was 
stricken with apoplexy. On the day of his sudden death, he was on 
'Change as usual, said he did not feel well, but nothing was thought of 
it. During the afternoon he attended an election for directors of the 
State Savings Institution, and afterwards a meeting of the Memphis 
Packet Company. The board had finished business, and were sitting 
chatting pleasantly, when Captain Roe's head was seen to fall on one 
side, he gasped for breath, and expired. He died in the midst of that 
"business he loved so well, in the full discharge of his duty, leaving the 
world the better for his having been in it. 

Such was John J. Roe. The man whose record is so clear ; whose 
success in life was achieved solely by his own efforts and perseverance ; 
who grappled with the complex problems of commerce and financial 
enterprise onl}^ to conquer ; whose death, though only a portion of his 
life was spent amongst us, was so universally and deeply felt, and 
elicited such an unwonted array of testimonials of sorrow, keen at once 
and sincere ; whose obsequies were the occasion of a general suspen- 
sion of business ; whose private life was no less pure than his public 
career ; the man whom many honor as their benefactor, whom the poor 
bless and the rich admire ; for whom a whole community mourn, and 
whose absence from his wonted places of business has more or less 
affected every interest with which he was connected during life ; — such 
a man has, indeed, taken from us the power to argue the question 
whether he shall be called great. In every intelligent citizen, the death 
■of such a man must awaken, as it does, profound regret that one who 
understood his work so thoroughly, who performed his duties so 
promptly, who dispensed his charities so generously and so noiselessl}- ; 
whose reputation was as untarnished as his life unblemished, and who 
had the energy requisite to embody his plans and actualize his concep- 
tions, should have been so suddenly withdrawn from fields of labor in 
which he had few equals, and hardly a superior. 




//T^^t^o^ /^ 




^^^€^^>- 



HON J:'^HANK P. BLAIR 
S30URI. 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR. 



/TV HE Blair family in America has a distinguished history. It has 
_i_ numerous branches spreading over different sections of the country, 
yet the members of each have found important places in politics, 
law, science and literature. In the early histor}- of Virginia, we find 
that James Blair, a native of Scotland, was a missionary of great learn- 
ing and piety, who took such a deep interest in the colonies that he 
made a special visit to England, after the accession of William and 
Mary, to raise funds and obtain a patent for the erection of a college. 
He succeeded beyond his expectations, and on his return superintended 
the building of an institution which he named after the reigning sover- 
eigns, and of which he was president nearly fifty years. 

x\nother member of the family, named John Blair, was one of the 
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States appointed 
by Washington. 

Another, James Blair, was a lawyer of considerable ability, who was 
born in Virginia, and practiced his profession lor some time at Abing- 
don in that State. He afterward moved to Kentucky, and was made 
Attorney-General of that State. He was the father of Francis Preston 
Blair, known for so many years as the editor of the Washington Globe., 
and friend and adviser of Andrew Jackson. This eminent man, still 
living at Silver Springs, Maryland, at the advanced age of eighty-four, 
has probably seen more of American politics than any man living, and 
in nearly all the important movements of the past fifty years has had 
more or less to do. 

His son, Francis Preston Blair, Jr., was no less conspicuous in 
public afiairs ; and, for the part he bore in the Free-labor movement, 
and in defense of his country during the late civil war, will ever be 
held in grateful remembrance by all in Missouri who cherish the Union 
and love freedom. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, February 19, 
1821. When he was nine years of age his father moved to Washington, 
District of Columbia, to take charge of the Globe. Here his boyhood 
was passed in attending primary and preparator}- schools, in which he 



l68 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

made good progress in learning. His collegiate course was commenced 
at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but, for good reasons, he afterward 
entered Princeton College, New Jersey, where he graduated with high 
honors at the age of twenty. Returning to Kentucky, he began the 
study of law under Lewis Marshall, but failing in health, he came to 
St. Louis on a visit to his brother, Judge Montgomery Blair. On his 
return to Kentucky, he completed his legal education at the Law School 
of Transylvania University. In 1843 he again came to St. Louis, to 
begin the practice of his profession ; but his health was so delicate that 
he was forced to abandon all literary work, and take a trip to the 
Rocky Mountains to recuperate. This he did with trappers and 
traders, and in 1845 he accompanied Bent and St. Vrain to their fort 
in New Mexico, now Colorado, and remained in that wild and hostile 
country until the expedition under the command of General Kearney 
reached that region, when he joined the enterprise, and served to the 
end of it in a military capacity. In 1847 he returned to St. Louis, his 
health being completely re-established, and resumed the legal profes- 
sion. The same year he was married to Miss Appoline Alexander, of 
Woodford count}-, Kentucky. 

In 1848 his father gave him a liberal amount of money, which he 
invested judiciously, and from it derived a competent and abundant 
fortune. This enabled him to devote a portion of his time to politics, 
for which he evinced a decided fondness. He became an active 
politician and a prominent leader of the Free-soil party. In those days, 
making speeches against slavery on slave soil was somewhat danger- 
ous ; but Mr. Blair understood the temper and mettle of his opponents, 
and knew how much to say and when to say it. It was not long before 
his political enemies discovered that he was courageous, and would not 
be put down by threats. He was elected to the Legislature in 1852, 
and again in the following year. During his legislative term he made 
several speeches in favor of the Free-labor system, and aroused a strong 
sentiment against the exactions and encroachments of slavery. His 
bold words inflamed the Pro-slavery party, and created, of course, a 
strong feeling of hostility against him and his supporters ; but he was 
not alarmed, nor deterred from the work he had undertaken. While 
the Free-labor movement made but little headway in the State, it gained 
a strong foothold in St. Louis, where the large German element existed, 
and in the spring of 1856 the Free-soil party was so well organized and 
drilled, under Blair's leadership, that it nominated a municipal ticket, 
and triumphantl}' elected it. The same year Mr. Blair was elected to 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR. 169 

Congress from the First District, and boldly advocated the doctrines of 
his party — but taking the position, which Henr}' Clay had taken years 
before, that the slaves, when emancipated, should be transported to 
Africa. 

In 1858 Mr. Blair was nominated for re-election to Congress, but was 
beaten by J. Richard Barret, the candidate of the Democratic party. 
Mr. Blair contested the right of Mr. Barret to the seat, and after a 
lengthy examination of the case, the House of Representatives referred 
the matter back to the people. A new election was ordered for the 
remainder of the term, and for convenience, the election for the next 
term was held at the same time. It resulted in the election of Mr. 
Barret to the short term, and Mr. Blair to the long term. 

He was subsequently elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress, in which 
he served as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, and as a 
member of other important committees. His influence at this time, both 
in Congress and at home, was unbounded. A Southern man himself, a 
former slaveholder, and possessing man}^ of the Southern traits of 
character, the cry of Abolitionist could not be raised against him, and 
he stood the most consistent promoter of anti-slaver}^ doctrines in the 
United States. Says a recent writer : "His calm, argumentative man- 
ner in the debate even of an inflammable political question, amazed 
his adversaries, while his personal courage was so great that any 
attempt to overawe or intimidate him was labor lost." 

In June i860, at Mr. Blair's suggestion, a meeting of the Republicans 
of the State was called, to send delegates to the Chicago Presidential 
Convention. He was chosen as one of the delegates, and took an 
active part in the proceedings of that body. When a difficulty arose 
between the friends of Hon. Joshua R. Giddings and others, as to the 
propriety of adopting a certain resolution as part of the national plat- 
form, and the chairman of the Convention, Mr. Ashmun, had decided 
the question against the Giddings party, so that a division was imminent, 
Mr. Blair raised a point of order which brought the resolution fairly 
before the Conv.ention again. This time it was so amended as to satisfy 
a majorit}^ of the delegates and still retain its force ; and its adoption 
saved a split in the Republican party. 

On returning to St. Louis after Mr. Lincoln's nomination, Mr. Blair 
addressed a ratification meeting, held at Lucas Market, but was so 
much interrupted by the "roughs" of the Democratic party, that he 
began to consider how similar scenes of violence might be prevented in 



lyo BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

future. His fertile brain conceived the idea of the "Wide Awakes," 
who were uniformed, provided with torches, and maintained order at 
RepubHcan gatherings. The other party also formed clubs, known 
as "Minute Men," and collisions between these two parties were of 
frequent occurrence. The "Wide Awakes" often accompanied Blair 
on his country electioneering tours, and prevented many a stoning 
which he and his companions would otherwise have received. 

With the election of Mr. Lincoln, the war seemed inevitable, and 
General Blair was the first to perceive the necessity of enlisting troops. 
No man was so active in the movement as he. He was the Captain of 
the first company of Union soldiers enhsted in Missouri, and materially 
assisted in defraying the expense of providing the men with suitable 
arms and accoutrements. When companies multiplied and grew to 
regiments, he was as active as before, and was by unanimous consent 
elected Colonel of the First regiment of Missouri Volunteers. While 
these troops were being enlisted and armed, the rebels were collecting 
a force at Camp Jackson to attack and take the Arsenal and make use 
of the large amount of stores placed there. General Blair's quick 
discernment unearthed the plot, and acting on his advice, General Lyon 
moved several regiments of volunteers and companies of regular United 
States soldiers from the Arsenal and Jefferson Barracks, and captured 
the camp with all therein. The unfortunate killing of citizens at the 
close of the day was deeply regretted by General Blair, but the insults 
of the mob were so wanton and their firing upon the troops so unpro- 
voked, that the latter could not be restrained and in fact were not 
considered blamable. General Blair was censured by some conserva- 
tive Union men at the time for the part he took in the capture of Camp 
Jackson. They claimed that the State troops were legally organized 
and called into service by the Governor, and had no intention of joining 
in rebellion against the United States Government. But General Blair 
knew, and subsequent events developed the fact, that the encampment 
was a well-laid plot to get control of the State and to seize United States 
property. General Blair nipped the conspiracy in the bud, and saved 
Missouri to the Union. 

During the greater portion of 1861, General Blair's time was occu- 
pied in looking after the interests of Missouri. At his instance General 
Harney was removed from the command of the Missouri Department, 
because he thought the safety of the State and good of the public ser- 
vice required it ; but when General Fremont, the successor of Harney, 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR. lyi 

managed military affairs in a way that seemed to General Blair detri- 
mental to the interests of the country, he demanded his removal also 
and secured it, notwithstanding a majority of the Germans, as well as a 
large number of prominent American Republicans, were in favor of 
Fremont's retention as Department commander. This act of securing 
Fremont's removal was the cause of a division in the ranks of the 
Emancipationists. Those who favored the immediate emancipation of 
slaves in the State, and were the strongest supporters of Mr. Lincoln's 
administration, became hostile to General Blair, and, notwithstanding 
past relations, both personal and political, denounced his action in 
unmeasured terms. He gained friends, however, from Conservatives, 
gradual Emancipationists and Democrats, and with the administration 
at Washington seemed stronger than ever. General Blair, in the mean- 
time, continued to aid the cause of his country, both in the field and in 
the halls of Congress. Believing that he could be of more service to 
the Union cause in the army, he remained with his troops during the 
spring and summer of 1862, but later in the year he returned to St. 
Louis, and decided to test his political strength b}^ offering himself 
again as a candidate for Congress. He made a strong canvass, and did 
not hesitate to deal hard blows against his old-time associates, whO' 
were now arrayed against him. Mr. Samuel Knox was the candidate 
of the Radical Emancipationists, opposed to him, and the official vote 
of the election gave Blair 4,743 ; Knox, 4,590 ; Bogy, Democrat, 
2,536. The Radicals elected their legislative and county ticket. 
Mr. Knox subsequently contested Blair's right to the seat, and it was 
awarded to him. General Blair resumed his place in the army, having 
been promoted to the rank of Major-General of volunteers November 
29, 1862, and determined to let political affairs at home take care of 
themselves. The breach that had been made in the Republican party 
of Missouri, however, was never healed so far as General Blair was 
concerned. He asked no quarter and would give none. His sentiments, 
so far as he expressed them, were against immediate emancipation, and 
his influence went to aid the opposition party. 

At the close of the month of December 1872, an organized plan was 
put in operation for the capture of Vicksburg. Troops were accord- 
ingly sent up the Yazoo River in large numbers, under four experienced 
division commanders, and the whole expedition was under General 
Sherman's immediate control. General Blair commanded the First 
Brigade of the Fourth (Steele's) Division, and in the order of attack 
was given the right centre. When the command was given to advance 



172 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

lie did so promptly, and made the assault on the enemy's line. The 
Record says : 

The first movement was over a sloping plateau, raked by a direct and enfilading fire 
from heavy artillery, and swept by a storm of bullets from the riiie-pits. Undauntedly 
the brigade passed on, and in a few moments drove the enemy from their first range of 
ritie-pits, and took full possession of them-. Halting for a moment, the brigade pushed 
forward and took possession of the second line of rifle-pits, about two hundred yards 
distant. The batteries were above this line, and their firing still continued. A prompt 
and powerful support was necessary to make the attempt to capture them. Simultane- 
ously with the advance of General Blair, an order was given to General Thayer, of 
General Steele's division, to go forv/ard with his brigade. He crossed the bayou by the 
same bridge as General Blair, and entered the abatis at the same point, and, defiecling to 
the right, came out upon the sloping plateau about two hundred yards to the right of 
General Blair, and at the same time. As he reached the rifle-pits, with a heavy loss, he 
perceived that only one regiment, the Fourth Iowa, Colonel Williamson, had followed 
him. After his movement commenced, the second regiment of his brigade had been 
sent to the right of General Morgan as a support. The other regiments had followed 
this one. Notice of this change of the march of the second regiment, although sent, had 
failed to reach General Thayer. With little hope of success he bravely pushed forward 
into the second line of rifle-pits of the enemy on the right of General Blair. Here, leav- 
ing the regiment to hold the position, he hurried back for reinforcements. Meanwhile^ 
General Blair, vainly waiting for support, descended in person to persuade the advance 
of more troops. He and General Thayer both failed in their efforts, and were obliged to 
order their commands to retire. While General Blair was urging the advance of more 
troops, his brigade fought with desperation to win the way to the top of the crest. Mean- 
time, a Confederate infantry force was concentrated to attack them, and after a sharp 
struggle, they were forced back to the second line of rifle-pits, when General Blair's order 
to retire was received. 

The failure of the forces under General Grant to act in concert with 
those under General Sherman in this attack on Vicksburg, caused the 
latter to withdraw, and on January 2, 1863, the troops were embarked, 
and moved down to the mouth of the Yazoo River. Throughout this 
short campaign General Blair acted with great gallantry, coolness and 
prudence. 

From this time until the final siege and capture of Vicksburg, General 
Blair was doing efficient service as a division commander. Whenever a 
difficult movement was to be made, he was selected to lead it, and when 
hard fighting was necessary his men were sure to be near. During the 
siege of the city, by order of General Grant, the division under Blair 
laid waste the country for fifty miles around, drove ofi' the white inhab- 
itants, burned the grist mills, cotton gins and granaries, and destroyed 
the crops. This course was distasteful to General Blair, but it was 
necessary in order to cut oft' the enemies' supplies and force capitula- 
tion, and he obe3'ed orders to the letter, his command acting as a 
"besom of destruction." 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR. I73 

On the death of General McPherson, General Blair was advanced to 
the command of the Seventeenth Army Corps. He had, during the 
fall and winter of 1863, participated in the active and successful cam- 
paigns of Sherman in Tennessee, and with the opening of spring these 
successes were followed up by a further advance into the enemy's 
country. At the battle of Kenesaw Mountains, on the 27th and 28th of 
May, General Blair held the extreme left of General McPherson' s line, 
and rendered important service against the enemy. The army under 
Sherman, though temporarily defeated here, soon recuperated, and 
following up the enemy prepared for a siege against Atlanta. The 
history of that siege is familiar to all. In the operations before that 
city, General Blair bore a most conspicuous part as commander of the 
Seventeenth corps. His discipline was perfect, his judgment never at 
fault, and his courage inspired all his comrades. In the celebrated 
"March to the Sea" under Sherman, Blair's men were always in 
advance, and always skirmishing with the enemy. They never went 
hungry if there was anything in the way to forage on, and for this 
reason were frequently accused of doing bold and wanton acts, but as 
their record for lighting was so good, their little eccentricities were 
overlooked by all good Unionists. 

With the capture of Savannah, on the 22d of December, the winter 
campaign of Sherman's army closed, and with the opening spring of 
1865 the war virtually terminated. At the close of the great campaign 
to the sea, General Blair returned to his old home in St. Louis, where 
he was received with the warmest demonstrations of friendship and 
affection by all classes of citizens. 

In reviewing the career of this eminent man, we cannot do better 
than to quote a portion of the speech made by Colonel Thomas T. 
Gantt, before the State Convention at Jefferson City on the loth of July 
1875, when the fact of his death was announced : 

"Since 1848 General Blair has been always in public life. If a fault 
can be imputed to him it is that in his zeal for the service of the State 
he has almost culpably neglected the care of his own household. In 
1848, by means of the investments which the liberality of his father 
enabled him to make in the rapidly-increasing city of St. Louis, he was 
possessed of a competent, nay an abundant fortune. He entered with 
ardor into public life. With a cool head, a warm heart and intrepid 
courage, he cherished as the dearest object of honorable ambition the 
wish to distinguish himself in the service of the State. He aspired to 
this service, looking to the consciousness of duty performed as a suffi- 



174 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

cient reward for the nights and days of toil which he devoted to its 
performance. Of course he was not indifferent to the fame that follows 
such performance ; but for this fame, not for the vulgar and sordid 
a-emuneration which consists of the emoluments of office, he was more 
than willing to "scorn delights and live laborious days." Devoting 
himself thus to the public service, he did not, in servile fashion, seek to 
accommodate himself to the prevailing prejudice of the community. 
Never was a man less of the time-server than Frank Blair. He entered 
upon the political arena when what was called the "Wilmot proviso" 
agitated the countr}'. He thought he saw in the efforts of some states- 
men a menace to the perpetuity of the Union. He scented this danger 
afar off, and while others considered his apprehensions imaginary, he 
denounced boldl}' and loudly the measures from which he augured the 
coming peril. Those who lived then and partook of the events of that 
day know well how little of the idle alarmist was Frank Blair. It 
required the highest courage to contemplate and to consider the 
threatened danger. It is the part of a timid man to shut his eyes and 
his ears to danger when it is distant and when forethought may provide 
against it, but to be bewildered and dismayed when it closes upon him. 
Frank Blair belonged to that heroic band whose fears and deliberations, 
whose doubts and misgivings, are confined to the council chamber, but 
are banished from the field of action. He looked forward to and took 
measure of the threatened calamity; he made provision againstit, giving 
all credit for capacity to hurt, while it was j-et too distant to strike ; but 
when he was confronted by it all doubt had vanished, all deliberation 
had ceased. The time for council had passed, the hour of action had 
arrived, and to the demands of that hour he never had an inadequate 
reply. By reason of having considered exhaustively the proportions of 
an evil while it was yet distant, he was unappalled by its near approach, 
and thus events of the most startling nature never found him unprepared. 
What many attributed to the endowment of an almost miraculous 
presence of mind was really due to patient and laborious provision and 
preparation. Like another heroic man whose name stands for the 
admiration of preceding ages, he was 'Scevis in tranquillus tindis' 
'"tranquil amidst tumult because he had dared to fear in tranquillity.' 

"I have remarked upon the intrepidity of his character. There never 
was a man who took less counsel of his fears. If he was accessible to 
a feeling which Turenne declared to be a part of human nature, he 
never allowed it perceptibly to sway his conduct, and over and over 
again he distinguished himself by assuming and performing tasks from 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BT.AIR. I75 

which, on one pretext or another, all others shrank. In his earlier 
political life, he led in an enterprise which was beset with obloquy and 
peril. For a long time he had very few followers. Those who sympa- 
thized with his views and avowed their S3'mpathy, gave a conspicuous 
proof of their own courage ; but all such will acknowledge that his 
leadership was never challenged. I will not dwell on the events 
of the years between 1852 and 1861 ; but, coming to the latter period, I 
think I may say that to him more than to an}' man li\'ing or dead, it is 
due that Missouri, and by consequence Kentuck}-, stood where they did 
in the eventful years that followed. I think also that he takes a short- 
sighted and imperfect view of our history who does not perceive that 
had these two States stood wdth Virginia in the terrible struggle that 
followed, the result of that struggle would have been widel}' ditf erent ; 
and all who believe that it was a benefit to the whole country that it 
should exist undivided, must recognize a debt of immeasurable magni- 
tude to Frank Blair. 

"In the bloody war which marked the attempt to accomplish this 
division, Frank Blair pla3'ed the part of a gallant soldier, but of a 
soldier whose sword was drawn only against the enem}- who stood with 
arms in his hands. He never pillaged, nor permitted his command to 
pillage. He fought to secure the supremacy of the Constitution and the 
perpetuity of the Union. When that was accomplished, he sheathed 
his sword. So far as he was concerned, the contest was over, the 
triumph was ended as soon as his opponent lowered his weapon. The 
moment this w^as done, he was once more the friend and brother of 
those against whom he was lately arrayed in deadly strife. In his eyes 
nothing but necessity justified a resort to arms. And when the necessity 
was over, all further justification ceased. Those who did not know 
these convictions of the heroic man whose death we commemorate, can 
hardl}^ understand his conduct in 1865 and 1866. 

" While insurrection was in armed resistance to Federal authority, he 
treated insurrectionists as enemies with whom it was idle to argue, and 
whom it was necessary to strike down with the deadliest weapons at the 
command of the national resources. But when resistance ceased, he 
was transformed from the inexorable enemy of disunionists into the 
most gracious and indulgent friend of his misguided countrymen, who 
had ceased to attempt what he regarded in the light of hideous crime. 
Accordingly, when he returned to St. Louis in 1865, after the close of 
the war, to find that man}- thousands of those who had been, and then 
were his fiercest political enemies, were disfranchised, his first act was 



176 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to protest energetically against the outrage ; to commence in the courts 
of this State a litigation, the object of which was to demonstrate the 
illegal character of this disfranchisement, and to enter upon efforts, 
which did not cease until they were successful, to remove the yoke 
which rested on the necks of his enemies. All know what he did in 
1865, 1866, 1868 and 1870, but few understand the nobleness of his 
purposes and aims. By many he is supposed to have simply pursued a 
personal end by means which he considered calculated to attain it. It 
is considered b}^ a large proportion of mankind that he was, like other 
political adventurers, aiming at popular favor, by assuming the advo- 
cacy of a numerous class. Surely nothing can be more unjust than this. 
It is contradicted by his whole history. While it was dangerous to 
avow Republicanism in Missouri, he did not shrink from the avowal. 
When Republicanism was in the ascendant, and Radicalism under the 
command of Fremont, commenced its reign of terror and martial law 
in Missouri, he forsook the dominant party, and exposed himself to 
obloquy and persecution, nay, to the extremity of personal danger, by 
withstanding the tyranny of this department commander. When Mr. 
Chase discriminated against St. Louis and in favor of Chicago and 
Cincinnati in his treasury regulations, he at once throttled him, and 
earned for himself all the consequences of that opposition. Returning 
from the army at the close of a war in which he had commanded a 
corps, at the head of which he bore back the fiery onset of Hood on 
the 22d of July 1864, there was no political preferment in Missouri in 
the gift of the dominant party to which he might not reasonably have 
aspired. Did he seek to utilize this position? Did' he appeal to the 
dominant party for such preferment? The world knows that he did 
nothing of the kind. He saw that this party rested upon injustice, 
against which his soul revolted. He refused to hold any communion 
with those who were guilty of this injustice. He refused to profit b}" 
this iniquity, and ranged himself, not with the powerful oppression, but 
with the feeble victim of the wrong. He did not confine himself to 
empty protest. He threw himself into the thick of angr}^ and dangerous 
contests ; and it may be doubted whether, in all the bloody campaign 
of 1864, he fronted more peril from the casualties of war than he 
encountered in 1866 from the animosities of those who then held Mis- 
souri with the armed hand, and enforced the subjection of her people 
by military violence — all who remember those days know that he elec- 
trified all hearts b}' his eminently dauntless spirit. The springing valor 
with which he met and put down the ruflianism by which he was 



GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR. 177 

encountered on this memorable occasion, was in its effect on those whose 
cause he espoused, Hke that which, in a darker age, would have been 
ascribed to supernatural influences. It was, indeed, something divine. 
It was the work of the most precious gift which God makes to 
humanit}' — the gift of an heroic spirit which rises to meet a deadly 
emergency, which grapples with an evil which will otherwise undo a 
people, and which, by the aid of that power which alwavs helps those 
who manfull}" help themselves, achieves the deliverance of mankind. 

The gratitude of the State selected Frank Blair to represent Missouri 
in the Senate of the United States, after he had freed her citizens, in 
1870, from the odious discriminations imposed on them by the Radicals 
of 1865. How well he served the State in that exalted sphere need not 
be stated here. His acts belong to the history of the country. I have 
not attempted to chronicle them either in his civil or military career. 
Time does not permit it, but this much I may say : Frank Blair went 
into public life a rich man. He left it impoverished and destitute. He 
was never suspected by the bitterest enemy of unlawfull}' appropriating 
to his own use a single penny, either from the treasury of the public, or 
as a gratuity from those who beset the halls of legislation, and, in one 
shape or another, give to men in public stations bribes for the betra3'al 
of public duty. He leaves to his children an unspotted name in lieu of 
a worldly wealth. It is a precious and it is an imperishable inheritance. 

"Among all the men I have ever known I rank the departed as 
supreme in generosity and magnanimity. Rancor and malice were 
foreign to his nature. The moment he had overcome his enemy his 
own weapons fell from his hands. Any one who had seen him only 
when a stern duty was to be performed, when mistaken lenity would 
have been the greatest cruelty, might imagine that he was all compact 
of flint and iron. The moment that firmness had done its work and 
there was no longer occasion for rigor, he was the surest refuge for all 
who had ceased to resist. To those who had been guilty of wrong and 
treachery towards himself he was forgiving to a degree which bordered 
on weakness. It is an honorable distinction that this is the worst 
censure that can be passed upon his heroic nature." 

The events of the last years of General Blair's life have been men- 
tioned by Colonel Gantt in appropriate terms. He did not long hold 
the position of Collector of Customs, to which he was appointed b}- 
President Johnson, but magnanimously yielded it to an old friend. 
Subsequently, he was Government Railroad Commissioner for the 
Pacific Railroad. 

13 



178 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

His short term in the United States Senate was distinguished lor the 
same boldness and honesty of purpose that characterized his earHer 
congressional career. If he had been more moderate and less honest 
on some occasions in his utterances, his prospects for the Vice-Presi- 
dency would have been more flattering. 

With the close of General Blair's senatorial term, his health com- 
pletely failed. He suffered from a slight attack of paralysis in 1871, 
but recovered sufficiently to perform his usual duties. A second 
attack, a year or two later, prostrated him to such an extent that he 
never recovered. His family indulged the hope that a residence at 
Clifton Springs, New York, would be beneficial to him. He was taken 
there, and, for a time, derived some benefit from the waters and pure 
air of that place. On his return to St. Louis, he showed signs of 
recovery, and walked the streets again to the great delight of his old 
friends. Over-exertion, however, both mental and physical, caused a 
relapse, and he was confined to his house again. His condition grew 
gradually worse, and, after many remedies had been tried without 
affording much relief or giving much encouragement to his friends, the 
process of transfusing blood from a healthy person to his veins was 
commenced, with beneficial results. It was repeated from time to 
time, and — Dr. Franklin the attending physician, thinks — would have 
proved entirely successful had it not been for an accident he met with 
on the 8th of July. The physician relates the circumstances : 

"About six o'clock yesterday evening I was called to see him, and found him suftering 
from the eflects of a fall he had received about a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon. 
He had been in the habit of walking about his room, and even down stairs. He had been 
improving rapidly, and the family placed him at the window, supposing he would remain 
there, while they were down stairs, I suppose, attending to their domestic duties. He 
was alone in the room but a little while, when he attempted to walk across the floor. In 
doing so he fell, and, striking his head, received quite a severe blow. He experienced much 
pain from the concussion, and his paralyzed side was rigid with spasms. He was breath- 
ing turgidly and suftering from the eftects of coma — unconscious, unable to swallow any- 
thing, and the slightest pressure of his hand produced a violent spasm; it was impossible 
even to touch him. I told the family to watch, knowing he could not live long. At nine 
o'clock I found his pulse was sinking, and becoming constantly more and more weak — all 
these symptoms foretelling a fatal termination. General Blair had no apoplexy, but 
paralysis and softening of the brain. The fall produced a tremendous shock to his 
system, and probably ruptured vessels in the interior of the brain. That is my diagnosis; 
there was pressure on the brain, and he died from the eftects of compression." 

The death of General Blair produced profound regret and sorrow in 
St. Louis and throughout the country. Meetings were held by the 
St. Louis Bar, the ex-soldiers of the Missouri Volunteers, the City 



GEN. FRANCIS p. BLAIR. 1 79 

Council, and other bodies, at which speeches eulogistic of the deceased 
soldier and statesman were made, and resolutions passed in honor of 
his memory. 

The State Convention, in session at Jefferson City, unanimously 
adopted the following resolutions: 

1. That in his death the State of Missouri has lost one of her most useful and eminent 
citizens, distinguished alike for his private virtues and his brilliant record as a soldier 
and a patriot. 

2. That the deceased was strongly marked by the possession of those high qualities 
which adorn the man, the character of truth, honesty, sincerity, courage and magnan- 
imity, and which justly gave him a firm hold upon the affections and confidence of his 
fellow-countrymen. 

3. That the dark shadow which the unwelcome messenger, death, has thrown around 
the domestic circle has awakened our deepest sympathy, and we tender to his venerable 
parents, his bereaved widow and children, and his numerous friends, our sincere condo- 
lence for the irreparable loss which they have sustained. 

4. That the President of this Convention cause a copy of these resolutions to be 
presented to the family of the deceased, and with an expression of our sympathies as here 
set forth. 

5. That these resolutions be spread upon the journal of this Convention, signed by 
the President and Secretary, and the public press of the State be i-equested to publish 
the same. 

6. That, in respect to the memory of our departed friend, this Convention do now 
adjourn to to-morrow at S o'clock. 

At a meeting of ex-Confederates in St. Louis, the following resolu- 
tion was adopted : 

Resolved, That we, the ex-Confederates here assembled, do as deeply mourn his loss, 
and as heartily acknowledge his high character and great abilities, as can those who 
never diflFered from him in the past great struggle ; as soldiers who fought against the 
cause he espoused, we honor and respect the fidelity, high courage and energy he 
brought to his aid ; as citizens of Missouri, we recognize the signal service done his 
State as one of her Senators in the National council ; as Americans, we are proud of his 
manhood; and as men we deplore the loss from among us of one in whom was embodied 
so much of honor, generosity and gentleness, and we remember with gratitude that so 
soon as the late civil strife was ended, he was among the first to prove the honesty of his 
course by welcoming us back as citizens of the Union he had fought to maintain, and 
that he never thereafter ceased to battle for the restoration and maintenance of our 
rights under the Constitution. 

General Blair's funeral, on Sunday, the nth of July, was attended 
by a very large concourse of people. All classes were represented, 
and the public buildings and many private residences displayed 
emblems of mourning. The services were held at the First Congre- 



l8o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

national church, Tenth and Locust streets, Dr. Post preaching an 
eloquent and appropriate discourse. Dr. J. H. Brooks also delivered 
a short address on the occasion. 

General Blair had, a year or two previous to his death, publicly 
professed the Christian faith, and united with the Presbyterian Church. 
He left a family consisting of the sorely-bereaved widow, five sons 
and three daughters, namely: Andrew A., aged tw^enty-six ; Christine, 
aged twenty-three; James L., aged twenty-one; Frank P., Jr., aged 
nineteen; George M., aged seventeen; Cora M., aged seven; Evelyn, 
aged five ; and William Alexander, aged two. 



MRS. ELIZABETH CRITTENDEN 



/TV HE distinguished women of America have seldom been honored 
-X. with an appropriate place in the biographical history of our 
country. Though possessing attributes and characteristics fre- 
quently illustrated by noble deeds, which really entitle them to be 
ranked among the "illustrious few" whose names live forever, they 
have been only cherished by their families and intimate associates, and 
in a few decades their names alone remain to connect the living gen- 
erations with the past. The record of the dignity, benevolence and 
intellectual and social accomplishments of our most distinguished 
women have, at best, found a place in "sketches" by other women ; 
or those, in honor and admiration of whom too much cannot be said, 
are mentioned but casually in the written lives of celebrated men, 
whom their influence has made "great." 

In this volume, which contains the history of the distinguished 
citizens of St. Louis, it is eminently proper that mention should be 
made of Mrs. Elizabeth Crittenden. 

The ancestors of Mrs. Crittenden, having come from England, 
resided in Albermarle and Goochland counties, Virginia. Her great- 
grandfather, Colonel John Woodson, inherited from his father a large 
landed estate, called "Dover," on James River, in Goochland. He 
married Dorothea Randolph, of "Dupgeness," one of whose sisters was 
the mother of Thomas Jefl'erson, the third President of the United 
States, and another the mother of Governor Pleasants, of Virginia. A 
son of Colonel and Mrs. Woodson married his cousin, Elizabeth 
Woodson, and their daughter Mar\', in iSoi, was married to Dr. James 
W. Moss, of Albermarle county, Virginia. These latter were the 
parents of Elizabeth Moss, the subject of this brief notice. 

A few years after his marriage. Dr. Moss removed to Mason county, 
Kentucky, where Elizabeth was born, and where she was educated, 
and lived until the removal of her father to Missouri, just before she 
had attained the age of womanhood. 



I»2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Dr. Moss first located in St. Louis, but, after a short residence in the 
city, he was attracted to the fertile and beautiful lands of the county of 
Boone, where he devoted himself to farming on a large scale, and to 
the gratuitous practice of his profession, in which he had attained great 
skill and reputation. A man of intelligence, education and culture, 
with a fine personal presence and great refinement and suavity of man- 
ner, he was prominent, and his home was one of the chief centres of 
social attraction among the many prosperous families from Virginia and 
Kentucky, that had settled in Boone and in the adjoining county of 
Howard, which two counties were, at that time, much in advance of 
any other portion of interior Missouri. 

Of all the varied attractions of his lovely home, there was none 
greater, none perhaps so great, as the presence of his fascinating 
daughter, the subject of this sketch, who was then noted for the rare 
accomplishments for which she was afterward so much distinguished, 
heightened by the charm of youthful beauty. She was sought in mar- 
riage, and soon became the wife of Dr. Daniel P. Wilcox, a young but 
promising and highly educated physician. Her early married years 
were happily passed among the quiet scenes of a village life, where her 
character was formed among friends by whom she was universally 
admired and sincerely loved, and whom she never forgot, or ceased to 
cherish, in her subsequent, brilliant, social career. At that early age 
she was a remarkable woman, as in after-life, and at no tinie, perhaps, 
were the fascinating beauties of her character so conspicuous. 

Dr. Wilcox was a man of great personal popularity, and was soon 
called to represent his county in the Legislature of Missouri ; but he did 
not live long to serve his State, or to enjoy the happiness of union with 
his lovely wife. He died a member of the Senate of Missouri, leaving 
his young widow with two daughters. One of these married our well- 
known fellow-citizen, Andrew McKinley, Esq., son of the late Justice 
McKinley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, and now the 
popular and efficient president of Forest Park. The other became the 
wife of Hon. E. C. Cabell, for many years the representative in Con- 
gress from the State of Florida, but now a resident of St. Louis. 
Mrs. Cabell died in the fall of 1873. 

After the death of Dr. Wilcox, his widow^ remained in the seclusion 
of her country home until she became, at the age of thirty, the wife of 
General William H. Ashley, a wealthy and distinguished citiz-en of 
St. Louis, and, at the time, a member of the lower house of the 
United States Congress, from Missouri. 



MRS. ELIZABETH CRITTENDEN. 183 

Immediately after this marriage, Mrs. Ashley was ushered into the 
society of Washington, then adorned by many women of intellect, 
education and refinement. Her remarkable beauty and grace at once 
attracted great attention, and very soon her tact and mental accomplish- 
ments, the simplicit}^ of her manner, her dignity of deportment, and 
her kind consideration for others, made her welcome everywhere ; and 
she soon became, and for thirty years continued to be, the favorite in 
the most refined and elegant circles of metropolitan life. 

General Ashley died, in 1838. He was a remarkable man — one 
of the best types of the early Western pioneers. Generous, brave, 
and daring, he was "the soul of honor," and commanded universal 
respect. He was, at an early date, connected with the North Amer- 
ican Fur Company, and commanded several expeditions to the Rocky 
Mountains at a time when most of the country west of St. Louis 
was a wilderness, inhabited by Indians and bufialoes. His fortune 
was made in the fur trade. He won the confidence, affection and 
admiration of the inhabitants of Missouri before and after the admis- 
sion of the State into the Union. Tall and graceful as Andrew 
Jackson, his presence was commanding, his bearing dignified, and 
his manners elegant. His great integrity and native intelligence, 
added to his strong will and force of character, and experience and 
knowledge of men, made him truly "a man of mark," and gave him a 
popularity and influence which made it possible to resist and overcome 
what was at that time considered, the omnipotent power of Thomas H. 
Benton over the politics of the State. He was elected and reelected 
member of Congress in spite of the opposition and protest of Benton. 
He was conspicuous for his enterprise and public spirit, and was 
one of its early settlers to whom St. Louis owes so much. He was 
a man w^ho deserved to be mated with the distinguished woman of 
whose life we are making this brief sketch. 

The home which General Ashley had provided for his beautiful 
bride, is well known to the older citizens of St. Louis as "The Mound." 
It is now in the heart of the city, and would not be recognized. It was 
then a magnificent suburban residence. The house, for those days, 
might be called elegant. In front an extensive level lawn, and in rear — 
sloping, with terraces, to the banks of the Mississippi, all covered witli 
fine forest trees and varied shrubbery ; and the view of river and country 
was extensive and beautiful. This was the charming home of the most 
elegant and accomplished woman in St. Louis, provided by one of the 
noblest of men. Here General Ashley dispensed the most generous 



184 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

hospitality, graced by the attractions and dignified bearing, and the 
elegance and accomplishments of his wife. 

To this home, now rendered sad by the death of her excellent hus- 
band, Mrs. Ashley returned from Washington. Here, for several 
years, she devoted herself chiefly to the education of her daughters ; 
but her magnetic attractions drew around her a circle of attached, 
admiring friends, and her house became the seat of unostentatious hos- 
pitality, which it was a privilege to enjo}^ and to which the kind-hearted 
hostess cordially invited all who were worthy of it. There are few 
citizens of St. Louis then and now living, who cannot recall, with 
pleasant satisfaction, some happy hours for which they are indebted to 
this estimable lady during this period of her life. 

In February 1853, she was married to Hon. John J. Crittenden, the 
distinguished Kentucky Senator, who was, at that time, the Attorney- 
General of the United States under Mr. Fillmore's administration. 
From that time until his death, in 1863, Mr. Crittenden continued in 
Congress, and his wife passed all those winters in Washington with her 
husband. She had passed several preceding winters there with her 
daughter, Mrs. Cabell, and during the interval which elapsed after the 
death of General Ashley, she had spent several seasons at the capital. 

No woman in America was so widely known. She was on terms of 
familiar acquaintance with all the public men of our own and the 
representatives of foreign countries, during the eventful period of our 
history, from the exciting times of South Carolina nullification to the 
culminating collapse of the war between the States. All were her 
friends. She was universally admired, and her society eagerly courted » 
not only at Washington, but in all our large cities from Boston to 
New Orleans, and at all fashionable watering places ; yet of her no^ 
word of censure was ever heard. All men and all women, all children 
and all servants, too, spoke of her only words of praise, admiration,, 
love and reverence. 

How and why was it that this simple country girl, reared and 
educated away from cities, with none of the advantages ( ?) of fashion- 
able education and training, born and living to womanhood in the 
"wild woods of the West," should have won so entirely the respect and 
admiration of the generation in which she lived? Without adventitious 
aid, without having had the fortune to do any one thing specially to 
distinguish her, she made herself not only the peer, but ^rima inter 
^ares of the most gifted- and brilliant women of her country. The 
cause may be summed up in that one word, tact : the result of great 
native intellect and supreme goodness of heart. 



MRS. ELIZABETH CRITTENDEN. 185 

She was a great reader, and her tamihar knowledge of the British 
classics and acquaintance with the literature of her own country, with 
her excellent judgment and great discretion, made her conversation 
always polished, charming and impressive. As every true woman 
should, she carefully studied the "art of dress," which no one better 
understood, and her toilette was always marked by great elegance, but 
greater taste. But her social success was achieved by exquisite tact 
and elevation of heart and mind, rather than by the more dazzling and 
frivolous refinements of fashionable life. It was her delight to dispense 
happiness ; and many were the opportunities of which she availed 
herself to bring out merit from obscurity. She was ever performing 
kind offices, in a way that secured the best results without wounding 
the feeling of those obliged. She not only knew the public men of the 
country, but was well acquainted with the leading families of every 
section of the Union, and those introduced to her in the most casual 
way were generally astonished to find that she knew them, their fami- 
lies and friends. She rarely forgot anything she had ever heard or 
knew, except such things as were unpleasant or disagreeable, and these 
things she carefully put behind her, and speedily forgot. She was 
never known to forget a face, and rarely the name of one to whom she 
had been introduced, however remote may have been the time of meet- 
ing. She alwa3's entered, with sympathy, into the aflairs of her young 
friends, whom she had frequent opportunities to serve, and always in 
the most delicate way. In ever}^ part of the American Union one may 
hear persons of the highest social position speak of her with ardent 
gratitude and affection, and of the many kind acts and attentions by 
which she contributed to their benefit or enjoyment. She was perfectly 
familiar with all the political issues of the day, and on them she spoke 
fluently and intelligently, but not as a partisan. Whatever the subject 
of conversation might be, whether political, literarj^ or social, she never 
assumed the air of superiority, or seemed conscious that her opinion or 
judgment was better than that of others. She also had "a gracious 
way of listening." Many ladies who converse well do not listen with 
attention, especially to persons less gifted than themselves. Not so 
with her. She possessed, in an eminent degree, this happy faculty 
always so charming in women, and so gratifying to man's aiiiottr- 
propre. 

These are some of the qualities which made her career so wonder- 
fully successful. As another element which went to make up this grand 
success, it may be mentioned that while all were her friends, she /lad 



l86 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

no intimates. Genial, social and kind, she took no liberties with her 
friends, and never permitted them to "take liberties" with her. Even 
her most familiar lady friends she invariably received in the parlor, 
never in her chamber, as is too frequentl}' the slip-shod way with the 
women, especially the young women, of America. 

As an illustration of the estimate in which she was held in Washing- 
ton, where so much of her life had been spent, we may mention an 
incident which occurred about the beginning of our late war. It is rare 
that a lady receives such a tribute as was oifered to Mrs. Crittenden. 
As a token of great regard and high appreciation, a "reception" was 
given to her in the parlors of the National Hotel, Washington, on which 
occasion the following address was presented by Hon. Mr. Lovejo}^ 
member of Congress from Illinois : 

Mrs. Crittenden: While the whole Union is paying its tribute of willing and 
abundant honors to the venerable Senator whose name you adorn, and whose home you 
bless, we, the guests of the National, and some of your other numerous friends in 
Washington, come to pay our respects to your manj^ excellencies. 

We bring no gifts of gold or silver taken from the cold earth ; but we ofter you tlie more 
precious treasures of our hearts — our affection, respect, esteem and admiration. 

For many years you have held a conspicuous place in the best circle of Washington. 
Your exalted place in society has been adorned by grace, dignity, courtesy and kindness 
universally manifested. These constantly flowing streams could have no other fountain 
than a heart full of goodness. 

It is the testimony of those who have been longest your friends, that they have never 
heard from vou a word that could wound, nor seen a look that could give pain. 
Detraction you have always scorned; kindness and genial feelings you have cherished. 
You have thus been a nation's benefactor. 

The names of Cornelia, Portia, Madame Roland and Lady Holland have become 
classic in history for their patriotism, high social qualities, and domestic virtues. 
Uniting the patriotism of the Roman matron to the conjugal devotion of Madame Roland 
and the polished refinement of Lady Holland, your presence has diffused a charm 
wherever known. You have shown us that if political life is an ocean with its dark 
waves and angry storms, social life may be a calm, serene lake, reflecting bright images 
of purity and love. 

The names of Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Crittenden will always shine in 
the annals of social life in Washington. 

We pay you the homage of our sincere respect and esteem. We take 3'our daguerreotype 
upon our hearts, and will keep it fresh while memory lasts. The hand of time has dealt 
so kindly with you thus far, that while you have the health and vigor of middle age, you 
still retain the freshness and vivacity of youth. May that hand still lead you gently on, 
till we all meet you in that better land, where youth is perpetual and beauty unfading! 

Senator Crittenden was a man of great simplicity of character and of 
unbounded hospitality. His house was ever full of devoted friends, of 
whom few men could boast so great a number. His wife adorned his 
simple home in Frankfort, Kentucky, with all the graces and attractions 



MRS. ELIZABETH CRITTENDEN. 187 

which had made her so conspicuous in Washington. Her remarkable 
versatihty adapted her equally to all ranks and conditions, and the hos- 
pitable fire-side of Mrs. Crittenden was rendered more charming by her 
wonderful domestic knowledge and home accomplishments. In all the 
varied departments of housekeepings Mrs. Crittenden was as proficient 
as in those qualities which gave her high position in fashionable society. 

In every relation of life she was distinguished for excellence. As 
daughter, mother, maid, wife and widow she ever performed her full 
duty. Remarkable as she was for intelligence, good sense, and bril- 
liancy in society — grandly as she bore herself in the gilded halls of 
wealth and fashion and state — nowhere did she appear to better advant- 
age, nowhere did her virtues and true womanliness shine so brightly, as 
in her first quiet little home of love in Boone, and again, in mature life, 
as head of the simple household of the illustrious Kentuck}^ Senator. 

After the death of Senator Crittenden, Mrs. Crittenden removed to 
the city of New York, where she resided eight years. There she 
found many who had known and loved her in her earlier career. 
Every Saturda}' was her "reception day" throughout the year, and 
strangers and citizens alike came to pay homage to one whose life had 
been distinguished by every qualit\^ which adorns the character of 
woman. 

She returned. to St. Louis in the early fall of 1872, to be with her 
children, who had come back to our city about the same time. But 
she lived only a short time to enjoy their companionship and her 
reunion with the friends of earlier days. 

On the 8th of February 1873, this remarkable woman died suddenl}- 
of apoplexy, and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery. The large 
concourse of citizens, which sadly followed her remains to their last 
resting place, attested the respect and affection with which she was 
regarded in this city. 

Elizabeth Crittenden is one of those characters whom God has not 
permitted to live in vain and for nought. From her life may be 
deduced a moral of great value, and from it ma}' be formed a model 
by which mothers may well strive to form the characters of their 
daughters. 




^'"EHtJdAN^ MuTEc\ Ligb-Co.oT. 



^^-^j^^ ^^t:^ /9r^^^ 



JAMES H. LUCAS. 



JAMES H. LUCAS was born at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, November 
12, 1800, and was consequently aged seventy-three at his decease. 
His father, John B.C. Lucas, was a native of Normandy, received 
a liberal education at the University of Caen, and visiting Paris after 
the close of the American revolution, adopted the recommendation of 
Dr. Franklin, and with other chivalric, ambitious 3'oung Frenchmen, 
emigrated to America. James le Ray du Chaumont, at w'hose father's 
house, near Passy, Franklin and Adams were domiciled, also came to 
the United States about the same time, and bought immense tracts of 
land in Otsego and Jefferson counties. New York. Mr. Lucas w^ent to 
Pennsylvania, and settled in Pittsburg, where he subsequently^ was 
appointed judge of the District Court, was efficient in enforcing the 
law during the whiskey rebellion, and represented the State in the 
National Congress. Before the 3-ear 1800, he w^as sent on a special 
mission, by Mr. Jefferson, to the then Territory of Louisiana, to sound 
the people in regard to the acquisition of the country by the United 
States, and thereby give unobstructed navigation to the mouth of the 
Mississippi for our commerce. On this mission he became impressed 
with the site of the "future great cit}'," but Ste. Genevieve being then 
the most important point, he went there, and had a conference with 
Francis Valle, the Spanish commandant. The object of his diplomatic 
visit was concealed, and it is said that he went under the assumed name 
of Du Panthro. After the acquisition of Louisiana, he was appointed 
by President Jefferson one of the judges of the Territory, and, in con- 
junction with Governor Wilkinson and Return Jonathan Meigs, com- 
missioner to adjust land titles. He removed to St. Louis with his famil}- 
in 1805, the tedious journey being made on keel-boats down the Ohio 
and up the Mississippi. 

St. Louis was then, wdth some exceptions, merely the residence of 
the indolent trapper or most desperate adventurer. Then there were 
no indications of pubHc spirit, or an}^ desire other than that of accumu- 
lation with the least possible exertion. The houses, mostly of wood 



190 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

daubed with clay, or built of stone in massive style, gave an idea of 
antique fortresses. Chouteau hill is described in the chronicles of the 
time as a barren waste over which the winds whistled and wild animals 
roamed. The streets were in a horrid condition. In this pristine 
period of the city young Lucas passed his boyhood days. In after 
years he related having seen wolves prowling about near the present 
site of Nicholson's establishment, on Sixth and Chestnut. They came 
out of the woods during the cold winter of 1808. The boys trapped 
prairie chickens where the Laclede Hotel stands, also in the fields near 
Twelth and Olive, where the Missouri Park is located. In 1814 young 
Lucas went with his father to Washington City. They traveled the 
entire distance on horseback, avoiding Vincennes on account of the 
Indians. It required from thirty to forty days to travel to Philadelphia. 
The traveler who then made a journey to the Atlantic States did not 
resolve upon it without mature deliberation. Months of preparation 
were required. Kind wishes and prayers were offered for the safe 
return of the voyagers by those who remained behind. There would 
have been some interest in announcing the departures. 

At the proper age young Lucas was sent to school. He first attended 
St. Charles College, in charge of the Dominican Order, at Harrisburg, 
Kentucky. Among his schoolmates at this institution were Jefferson 
Davis, Louis A. Benoist, Bernard Pratte, Gustave Soulard and Bion 
Gratiot. Mr. Lucas next attended school about 1816, with his brother 
William, at Jefterson College, Pennsylvania, and it was while there that 
he received news of the death of his brother Charles, killed in a duel 
with Colonel Benton. The subject of the sketch taught school and 
studied law at Hudson, New York. He also visited various parts of 
New England, and pursued his law studies with Judge Reeves, of 
Litchfield, Connecticut, and among the students attending at the same 
time were Governor Ashley, Ichabod Bartlett, of New Hampshire, and 
N. P. Talmadge, afterward United States Senator from New York. 
During one of his vacations he spent some time in Franklin, New 
Haven, where he was known as the "Young Frenchman," a designation 
given him from his habit of wearing in the morning a robe-de-ckanibre, 
which was a novelty in the way of dress in those parts. 

Becoming satisfied that the East was not the place suited for him, he 
returned to St. Louis, and casting about for a place to settle he started 
on a keel-boat in 18 13 for South America, having for companions 
Governor Ashley and another young man. They landed at Montgomery 
Point, on the White River, and changing their destination, went up the 



JAMES II . LUCAS. I^I 

White River in a pirogue, passed through the "Cut-off'* to Arkansas 
Post, where Mr. Lucas located for a time, and also at Little Rock. He 
turned his hand during this period to various avocations. He taught 
school and practiced law, passing his evenings in study. He worked 
for a time on the Arkansas Gazette, and set type to help out Mr. Wood- 
ruff, who was then editor of that sheet. He became the owner of a 
plantation, and had a ferry, when he w^ould convey foot-passengers 
over the river opposite his farm at a cost of twenty-tive cents. He 
worked his way slowly up, and was appointed by Governor Miller 
Probate Judge. He has since related that as judge, he did a fair 
business in marrying people. He officiated at the wedding of Albert' 
Pike, the poet-lawyer and statesman. On one occasion, he married a 
couple, using instead of a Bible to satisfy the scruples of the part}', a 
Webster's spelling book. In May 1832, he married Miss Mary E. 
Dessuseaux, the daughter of an early settler of Arkansas and a native 
of Cahokia, Illinois, who survives him. Among other positions filled 
by him at this period was that of Major in the Territorial militia of 
Arkansas, an appointment also tendered him by Governor James Miller 
in 1825. 

He continued to prosper, when, on the death of his brother William 
at St. Louis, in 1837, he received a letter from his father. Judge Lucas, 
requesting him to come and settle in St. Louis, as he was the only son 
who was living, and he was desirous that he should be near him. He 
obeyed the wishes of his father, and forsaking his prospects in Arkansas, 
removed to St. Louis, since which time he has been identified with its 
growth and prosperity. He arrived in 1838, having been here on a 
visit the year before. His father gave him what he called his farm, of 
thirty acres of land, then valued by the old gentleman at $30,000, and 
also placed him in charge of his estate. Mr. Lucas cultivated the farm^ 
and had his residence near the fountain in Lucas, now called Missouri 
Park. 

Judge J. B. C. Lucas died in 1843, and James H. Lucas and his 
sister, Mrs. Anna M. Hunt, succeeded to the estate. 

The original tract owned by the estate was bounded north by St. 
Charles street, on the east by Fourth, south by Market, and west by 
Pratte avenue. That embraced the Lucas property up to 1837. The 
last acquisition made by the old Judge v/as Cote Brilliante, consisting of 
240 acres, which was bought for $150 in gold, and comprised the 
undivided land owned by Mr. Lucas and Mrs. Hunt. Mr. Lucas had 
also another farm, the New Madrid location, his country seat, called 



192 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

" Normand}-," on the St. Charles Rock road, nine miles from the city. 
This portion, now belonging to the Lucas estate, comprises 800 acres. 
Also, at the mouth of the Missouri river, there are 643 acres belonging 
to the estate. This is an old Spanish fort, where the battle of Belle- 
fontaine was fought, in which fight Charles Lucas participated as 
Colonel. There is also the Courtois tract, consisting of 400 arpents, 
near Eureka station on the Meramec, still undivided ; also, 20 acres on 
the Clayton road, the old Barrett place. In the management of the 
city portion of his vast estate in building and improvements, Mr. Lucas 
devoted the remaining 3'ears of his protracted life, and but rarely 
■engaged in the turbulent excitement of political affairs. 

He, however, consented to run for State Senator in 1844, and, being 
•elected, served four years with credit to himself. He secured the 
passage of an act reducing the statute of limitations in ejectment cases 
from twenty to ten years. 

In 1847, Mr. Lucas was brought forward as the candidate of the 
"Whig part}' for Mayor, his opponents being W. M. Campbell, Native 
American, and Judge Bryan Mullanphy, Democrat. Mr. Lucas was 
drawn into the canvass unwillingly, being drafted as it were, but having 
become a candidate, entered into the contest with spirit. The result 
was that Judge Mullanph}^ was elected, the vote being — Mullanphy, 
2,453 ; Campbell, 1,829 ; Lucas, 962. The Whig party was then in its 
decadence, and the putting forward of Mr. Lucas as its candidate was 
in the nature of a forlorn hope in its struggle for existence. 

Immersed in the concerns of the large business connected with his 
immense property, he found time for, and was identified with, many 
public enterprises. He was an early champion of railroads in Mis- 
souri. He was among the original subscribers to the stock of the 
Missouri Pacific Railroad to the amount of $33,000, and was the 
second president of that company. In 1868 he was again elected 
president. He was instrumental in purchasing the State's lien at 
^7,500,000, and with James Harrison negotiated a loan on the bonds. 
He was the first president and organizer of the St. Louis Gas Company. 
He was a director in the Boatmen's Savings Institution ; an extensive 
stockholder and director in many of the various moneyed institutions of 
the city, and was intrusted with many responsible positions. 

In 1857 the banking firm of Lucas, Symonds & Co., of St. Louis, 
and the branch in San Francisco, under the firm of Lucas, Turner 
& Co., went under with the financial panic of that 3'ear. In these 
financial troubles Mr. Lucas assumed the entire liabilities, and paid off 



JAMES H. LUCAS. I93 

every creditor, with ten per cent, interest, the loss to him amounting in 
the aggregate to about half a million of dollars. The debtors of the 
banking houses he never sued, but accepted whatever was offered. 

In 1856 Mr. Lucas sought a temporary relaxation from his labors in 
an extensive tour through Europe, his traveling companions being his 
son William and his daughter, Mrs. Hicks, now the wife of Judge 
Hager of California. He visited the home of his ancestors in Nor- 
mandy, and bought the old homestead near Pont-Audemer. Returning 
home he attended with assiduous industr\' to the management of his 
business. Under the transforming hand of time and the rise in the 
value of real estate, his riches increased with the rapid progress of 
St. Louis. 

At every corner and in every nook, houses, great and small, have 
risen, like exhalations from the ground. Structures were reared and 
finished before one was aware that they had been commenced, and 
from the little fur trading post, with four thousand inhabitants, the city 
has grown up to a size of metropolitan grandeur, with hotels, churches 
and palatial residences rising on every side. Mr. Lucas has seen all 
this, bore a part of it, and his name will long be associated with these 
monuments of our history and prosperity. He owned two hundred and 
twenty-five dwellings and stores previous to the division of his property 
in 1872. His taxes last year on his portion of the estate were $126,000. 
He had in all three hundred and odd tenants. Before the division two 
years ago of two millions to his wife and eight children, the income was 
$40,000 per month, amounting to nearly half a million annually. After 
giving away the two millions, the portion of the estate left is estimated 
by good judges at five millions. He was also largely interested in the 
Pilot Knob Iron Company, owning one-fifth of the stock, which he 
gave away to his children, being $25,000 to each, and not included in 
the two millions given them as before stated. At an early day his 
father. Judge Lucas, lived in a stone house on Seventh street, between 
Market and Chestnut, and he also had a farm residence in the woods, 
on the site of the First Presbyterian church, and one of the apple trees 
of the old orchard is yet standing. 

The residence of Mr. Lucas was for many years on the south-east 
corner of Ninth and Pine, known now as the "Porcher mansion," but 
of late years he resided in an elegant dwelling on Lucas Place, bought 
of John How in 1867. 

Mr. Lucas, though the possessor of vast means, was many times a 
borrower of money. He was at some periods what is called "land 

13 



194 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

poor." About twenty years ago, while attending a meeting at the 
Planters', he told a well-known citizen that he was worth two millions 
in real estate, but that he frequently had not money enough to do his 
marketing. 

Many instances might be given of Mr. Lucas' liberality, but a few 
will suffice : 

He projected and built Lucas Market, an enterprise, it is true, that 
tended to advance his own propert}^ adjoining. He gave a quit claim 
deed to the old jail lot. He donated to the Historical Society a lot 
valued at $10,000, situated on Locust, between Twelfth and Thirteenth 
streets. 

He donated $11,000 toward building the Southern Hotel. Recently 
he encouraged the New Exchange enterprise by selling a portion of the 
ground to the association at a low price, and by taking $20,000 stock, 
with assurances that the Fourth street front, when built, would be equal 
in elegance and architectural design to the building of the Chamber of 
Commerce Association. He gave to the cit}' Missouri Park. Two or 
three times he and Mrs. Hunt gave lots for a Cathedral, besides giving 
lots and donations of money to numerous charitable institutions. 

The following instance of his liberality may also be mentioned in this 
connection: At the close of the war, in 1865, a man came up here 
from Little Rock, with $8,000 in "starvation bonds," which he endea- 
vored to sell, in order to meet his pressing wants. The only offer he 
received was twenty cents on the dollar for the bonds. Mr. Lucas took 
them at their face, making only one request, that the party selling them 
would, on his return to Arkansas, give "Old Lark}-," who was in indi- 
gent circumstances from the war, and whom he knew, some meat and 
flour. The bonds he subsequently gave awa}- to old Dr. Price to pay 
his taxes with, as the}- were good in Arkansas for that purpose. 

Mr. Lucas was a man of marked capacity and decided character, 
and of the most undoubted integrity. He was modest and unassuming 
in his deportment, and retiring in his habits, with no disposition to put 
himself forward, but in whatever position he was placed he was 
emphatic and decided. 

With all these elements of a strong character, he was fitted to assume 
the responsibilities devolved upon him by his father to manage a great 
estate, which, by his prudence, foresight and industry, has been largely 
increased in value and kept intact for the benefit of his famih*. 

Mr. Lucas died November 9, 1873, and his remains were buried on 
the 13th, from St. John's Roman Catholic Church, thence to Calvary 
Cemeterv. 





k? ,2^i 



JAMES HARRISON, 



NOTHER one of the men whose Hves were not in vain, and 

whose names go to make up the hst of the honored dead of St. 

Louis, is James Harrison, who, while Hving, gave his best energies 

to the advancement of the city of his adoption, and dying left a void 

in the commercial world which none could fill. 

Mr. Harrison was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, October lo, 
1803. His early years, like those of some of our most honored citizens, 
were passed upon a farm, assisting his father in agricultural pursuits, 
and to this fact ma}^ be attributed that bodily vigor which in after-life 
enabled him to endure the fatigues into which his adventurous disposition 
led him. His educational advantages were somewhat limited, but he 
made the most of such as were at his command, and obtained a good 
common school education. From his youth up he was eminently 
practical, and preferred an active business life, in daih^ contact with 
men, to that of a student among books and retirement. 

During the year 1822, while he was yet a mere youth, he left his 
home in Kentucky, and, prompted by a desire of adventure and enter- 
prise to be up and doing, he went to Fayette, Howard county, Missouri, 
where he engaged, in compan}- with James Glasgow, in mercantile pur- 
suits, which he followed with great success for several years. 

In 1830, he married Maria Louisa Prewitt, daughter of Joel Prewitt, 
Esq., of Howard county, Missouri, and sister of Mrs. Wm. N. Switzer 
and of Dr. Prewitt, of St. Louis, who died in 1847, leaving four chil- 
dren — a son and three daughters, all of whom survive their parents. 

During the years 1831 and 1832, he led a busy but adventurous life 
in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, where, on one occasion, he was 
one of two only out of a party of thirteen who escaped death at the 
hands of a body of Indians in a running fight ; the remaining eleven 
were murdered and scalped. 

From 1836 to 1840, his partnership with Mr. Glasgow still continuing 
under the style of Glasgow & Harrison, his field of operations lay in 
Arkansas, where his enterprises met with the most flattering success. 



196 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. • 

In 1840, Mr. Harrison came to St. Louis, with the intention of making 
this city his future home. He saw in the small city the nucleus of a vast 
metropolis. He foresaw the importance of the central city, and the 
wealth that must in time be poured into the lap of the future capital of 
the West. The immense mineral wealth of Missouri was known to him 
earlier than to most others, and he determined to devote his time and 
talent to its development. He formed connections with men who were 
eminent for their business capacity and wealth ; and with their aid con- 
ducted their large mercantile, speculative and manufacturing operations 
to most satisfactory results. In 1840 he was one of the firm of Glas- 
gow, Harrison & Co. In 1845 he was a prime mover in the formation 
of the "Iron Mountain Company," consisting of James Harrison, P. 
Chouteau and F. Valle, of St. Louis ; C. C. Ziegler and John Scott, of 
Ste. Genevieve ; F. Pratt, of Fredericktown ; Aug. Belmont, S. Ward 
and Chas. Mersch, of New York. This Company gives promise, 
through its known resources and progress, to become ere long one of 
the largest producers of iron in the world. Meantime, he became a 
partner in the firm of Chouteau, Harrison & Valle. The high social 
position, business talent and wealth of this house have done much to 
build up and establish, not only the iron interests of St. Louis, but also 
the general reputation of its entire manufacturing and mercantile com- 
munity. 

A volume might be written describing in detail all the gigantic and 
beneficent projects that Mr. Harrison planned, and by his own indom- 
itable will and energy brought to a successful termination. In all his 
undertakings, he readily secured the co-operation of the most eminent 
men of the city, and, in turn, he was always ready to assist, with his 
money and advice, others who had useful and productive projects of 
their own. 

A marked characteristic of Mr. Harrison was to engage in important 
enterprises alone. He had marvelously keen foresight, and this enabled 
him to see openings for extensive transactions, while his courage fitted 
him for carrying them into execution, even when attended with peril 
to health and life ; and his prudence and integrity secured the ready 
co-operation of capitalists, as well as the recognition of his many 
sterling business qualities. With such advantages as these, he embarked 
in various enterprises in the Southern States and Mexico, projected on 
a grand scale, and involving personal danger, while they required for 
their execution all the resources of a well-balanced mind and courage- 
ous heart. In these undertakings he was successful, for no personal 



JAMES HARRISON. I97 

danger or privation ever deterred him from completing a cherished 
scheme. 

He was always a staunch defender of home interests. Everything, 
in short, which promised to be of public utility, received his attention 
and encouragement. And every man, no matter how poor or humble, 
whose talents were likely to be valuable to the community, was always 
treated b}' him with the utmost respect and kindness. He was a friend 
and patron of railroads, and contributed much toward the building of 
the "Iron Mountain," the "Pacific," and others now leading out of 
St. Louis in every direction. 

The branch of industry to which he devoted the last years of his 
active life, w^as the production of iron, from native ore. He early per- 
ceived the inestimable wealth which lay hidden in the bowels of the 
Iron Mountain and vicinity, and, as before stated, he, in 1845, set about 
securing a large interest in them. Long-continued discouragements of 
various kinds, and enormous expense attended the establishment of this 
branch of industr}^ but the unwear3ang energy of Mr. Harrison and 
associates triumphed over every obstacle, and laid the foundation of a 
business which has since grown and increased to immense proportions. 

Mr. Harrison lived long enough to see many of his prophecies, in 
reference to St. Louis and the productions of the State, fulfilled. He 
had the satisfaction of seeing magnificent railroad trains starting daily 
from St. Louis to the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He 
saw furnaces springing up rapidly for the production of iron, and shops 
for its manufacture, and assisted in their erection. He lived to see his 
favorite city nearly double its population in the last ten years, being the 
fourth in the list on the continent, and withal, wonderfully rich in 
wealth-producing elements, and doubly rich in civilizing institutions, 
culture and benevolence. He must have been conscious, too, that a 
large share of this wonderful progress and material prosperit}^ was due 
to his exertions. 

He possessed in a rare degree the talent of understanding character 
and of winning confidence. His knowledge of men enabled him to 
select and attach to himself, as partners, friends, associates and 
employes, men of talent and honesty, each worthy of confidence and 
eminently fitted for the work he was to perform. Man}^ of these still 
survive the leading spirit ; and all are distinguished as men of enlarged 
views, fertility of resources, persevering energy, and all the other 
qualities which make men leaders and exemplars for their fellow-men, 
iind benefactors of their country. He had a high appreciation of 



198 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

culture, and especially of the scientiiic education he had not an oppor- 
tunit}^ of acquiring in early life. 

It cannot be said that James Harrison toiled for wealth alone, but 
rather to expend his energies and abilities on worthy objects, and to 
effect some great good. It is true, also, that not a taint of suspicion of 
dishonor attaches to any of his numerous and large transactions. While 
living, he was, indeed, a shining light and a noble example to all whose 
aims were elevated and good ; and we are only uttering a truth when we 
say that, though dead, the memory of this good man still speaks to the 
living, inciting his fellow-citizens to pursue the paths of usefulness and 
honor. 

In person Mr. Harrison was tall and erect. His face always indicated 
gravity and true dignity. His manner repressed undue familiarity, 
while his courteous bearing attracted all whom he deemed deserving 
and worthy. In his habits he was remarkably temperate ; hence his 
industry was unflagging, his energy unceasing ; while a well-known trait 
in his character was a marvelous serenity under misfortune, and an 
absence of elation in periods of special prosperity. 

On the 3d day of August 1870, Mr. Harrison passed away in the 
midst of his usefulness, leaving the record of an honest man. His death 
was an incalculable loss to the community in which he had so long been 
a leading spirit. The imperishable evidences of his labors and enter- 
prise are stamped in unmistakable characters upon works more enduring 
than bronze or marble ; and the ability with which he grappled the great 
commercial and manufacturing problems of his adopted State, adds a 
lustre to a name that Missourians will always be proud to honor. 



JOSEPH CHARLESS. 



OF the many illustrious citizens of St. Louis who have gone to their 
last resting place, no one is remembered with more universal feel- 
ings of affection for his many sterling qualities of head and heart, 
or more profound regret at his death, than the late Joseph Charless. 
Although many years have passed away since he was laid in his grave, 
yet his memory still lingers in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, even as 
the fragrance of the rose hovers near long after the leaves are withered 
and crumbled to ashes. 

Joseph Charless was born January 17, 1804, in Lexington, Kentuck}-. 
He was a descendant of a ver}^ reputable Irish family, forced to flee their 
native land on account of the father's active participation in the rebellion 
which brought the patriotic Emmett to the scaftbld. His father, Joseph 
Charless, participated in that eventful struggle, his whole soul going 
with the party whose object w^as to break the shackles that enslaved 
his country ; and when the plans of this noble and daring enterprise were 
discovered, he, like a great many others, sought an asylum in France 
to avoid the halter or transportation to the penal colonies, and soon 
afterward emigrated to the United States. 

The elder Charless was a printer by trade, and he established himself 
in the city of Philadelphia, and worked for Mathew Carey, who at that 
time did the largest publishing business in that city ; and it was a 
frequent boast of his that he assisted in printing the first quarto edition 
of the Bible ever printed in the United States. In 1798 he married 
Sarah Gouch, and in 1807 came to St. Louis. In July 1808 he started 
the first paper ever printed west of the Mississippi, the Missouri Gazette^ 
now the most influential journal of the Southwest, and known as the 
Missouri Rcfiihlican. 

Mrs. Sarah Charless, the mother of the subject of the present sketch, 
was a most exemplary Christian lady, and was the first to agitate the 
organization for building the first Presbyterian church in St. Louis. 
She was noted for her abundant charity, and it was a well-known fact 
that no stranger or unfortunate mendicant was ever turned from her 
hospitable doors unrelieved. She died loved and regretted. 



200 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

The first years of young Joseph Charless were spent under the tui- 
tion of the village school-master, receiving such instruction as the early 
schools afforded. When he attained such an age as to be useful, he 
was put to work in his father's printing office, where he picked much 
useful information. His father intended him for the legal profession, 
and with that object in view, young Charless entered the office of 
Josiah Spaulding, where he read law for some time, and afterward 
went to complete his legal studies at Trans^dvania University, Ken- 
tucky. In the meantime, his father had sold out the Missouri Gazette 
and entered the drug business. In 1828, Mr. Charless went into part- 
nership with his father in this business, and afterward became the 
head of the large firm of Charless, Blow «fe Co. 

In November 1831, he married Miss Charlotte T. Blow, daughter of 
Captain Peter Blow, of Virginia, a lady much admired for her beauty 
and accomplishments. 

From the date of his entering into business with his father until his 
death, which occurred June 3, 1859, Mr. Charless could not be said 
to be a public man by virtue of his holding office or being prominent in 
political affairs ; yet was he a most valuable citizen. In all public 
enterprises in which the city of St. Louis was concerned, Mr. Charles 
never failed to supply pecuniary aid. No citizen had a quicker per- 
ception to foresee advantages which would be likely to arise from 
public improvements, and none advocated them more warmly. Every 
pubhc institution, ever}^ benevolent movement, every church, w^as made 
the richer on account of his munificent donations, and his charities were 
of that unostentatious nature that the public knew but little of them ; 
and those who knew him most intimatel}' speak in the highest terms of 
his liberality to the poor and unfortunate. 

In all works of municipal importance, there was Mr. Charless to be 
found. He had been a member of the Board of Aldermen, and a 
director of the pubhc schools. He was president of the State Bank of 
Missouri ; also of the Mechanics' Bank of St. Louis. He was an elder 
in the Presbyterian Church, and was one of the most active in building 
the City University and Fulton College, which latter is under control 
of the Presbyterian Church. He was also one of the directors of the 
Pacific Railroad. 

It is impossible to over-estimate a character so pure and elevated as 
that of Mr. Charless. His greatness was not found in the paths usually 
trod by the soldier, or the orator ; he was not to be found in the arena 
of political strife, or in the hot pursuit of professional renown. His 



JOSEPH CHARLESS. 20I 

sphere in life was the business circle, and his name in St. Louis always 
carried respect and influence. He had seen many changes in the city, 
and had helped as much as any man of his day to transform its poverty 
to wealth, its log houses to palatial residences, and to extend the far- 
reaching arms of its commerce to all parts of the continent. 

The tributes of unsolicited praise and of unaftected grief, presented 
b}^ sorrowing thousands at the time of his death, speak in louder tones 
than an}^ faint tribute our pen might write to his memory. He fills 
an honored tomb, whereon every organization with which he had an}- 
connection laid its wreath, as a token of regard and affection to one of 
the purest and best of men. His funeral took place June 6, 1859, fi"oni 
the Second Presbyterian Church, corner of Walnut and Fifth streets, 
the site of the present Temple. Thousands sought entrance to the 
church, but in vain, so large was the multitude which had gathered to 
' pay the last tokens of respect to his honored remains. The funeral 

sermon was delivered by Rev. Dr. McPheeters, pastor of the church ; 
when all that remained mortal of one of St. Louis' most honored citi- 
zens was laid beneath the murmuring myrtles of that beautiful city of 
the dead — Bellefontaine Cemeterv. 




J^d A) Z^*-^ !-«_ 



JAMES L. D. MORRISON. 



ON. JAMES L. D. MORRISON, a descendant of one of the 
oldest American families in the Mississippi Valley, was born 
in the ancient town of Kaskaskia, Illinois, April 12, 1816. His 
father, Robert Morrison, came from Philadelphia about the year 
1792, and settled in Kaskaskia; and his mother was Eliza A. Lowr}^ 
daughter of Colonel Lowry, of Baltimore, and sister of James L. 
Donaldson, one of the Spanish land commissioners, with whom she 
came to the country in 1805. His descent is entirely Irish on both 
sides. 

His early education was as extensive as the youth of that early period 
in the countr3''s history received, but in this respect he was particularly 
fortunate in the instructions of his mother, who was tor many years 
looked upon as the most brilliant and intellectual woman in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. 

At the age of fourteen, young Morrison started out on some adven- 
tures which made lasting impressions on him, and doubtless, to a great 
extent, had much to do with the foundation of his character. His father 
was the largest mail contractor in Illinois, with routes extending from 
Kaskaskia to Shawneetown, Cairo, Vandaha, Palmyra, Cape Girardeau 
and other points, and was paid by drafts upon the different post-offices. 
While still a young man he was sent to collect the drafts all over the 
country, and take the money to Kaskaskia. In the winter of 183 1-' 32,. 
while returning from Palmyra, Clarksville and other points, he found 
the Missouri river frozen over at St. Charles. His uncle, who resided 
at this place insisted on his remaining a few days, which he did. In 
crossing the river his horse broke through the ice, but before he disap- 
peared, young Morrison secured his bridle, saddle and saddle-bags, the 
latter well filled with silver, and with these strapped to his back, he 
proceeded to the residence of Mr. George Collier, near the present 
corner of Pine street and Leffingwell avenue. This adventure, and the 
pluck displayed by the young man, so pleased Mr. Collier, that he 
remained a staunch friend of Morrison's through life. Should a mail 



204 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

boy be taken sick or become disabled, 3'oung Morrison was ever ready 
to take his place. 

The spring of 1832 found 3'oung Morrison carrying the mail two days 
in the week, and attending school three days, in addition to attending 
store at Belleville, Illinois. This spring he received the appointment 
of midshipman in the United States navy. His first cruise was in the 
Pacific ocean, on board the sloop-of-war Fairfield, which lasted about 
twenty-seven months. 

.Returning from this voyage, after being the hero of some stirring 
adventures in the harbor of Callao, in Peru, in giving aid to the- ship- 
ping which was being fired upon, he was transferred to the West India 
squadron, Commodore Dallas' flag-ship. An attack of rheumatism, 
which he had contracted from exposure, sent him to the Naval Hospital 
at Pensacola, Florida, where he remained eight months. During these 
long months, in order to beguile the weary hours of the hospital pallet, 
he read the first volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, and through it 
became interested in legal studies, and, sending to Mobile for Black- 
stone and Kent's Commentaries, for about seven months gave them his 
attention. 

In 1836, he returned home, and entered the office of Judge Pope as a 
student. His close application, in addition to his previous studies, 
qualified him for the bar in about a year, when he was admitted to 
practice. His pay at this time, as a midshipman, was but nineteen 
dollars per month, and it took two months' pay to purchase the eight 
volumes he bought at Mobile. 

The first one hundred dollars young Morrison made in practicing law, 
was in Jackson county, Illinois, where he quashed an indictment for 
murder. With this he entered one hundred acres of land, which he 
still possesses. Upon the resignation of Hon. Hugh L. White, United 
States Senator from Tennessee, happening to be in Washington, he 
attended a public dinner offered to that distinguished gentleman, made 
a speech, resigned his place in the navy, joined the political for- 
tunes of the Old Whig party, entered fearlessl}^ into the Harrison cam- 
paign, rode in a canoe from Belleville to Springfield, Illinois, spoke at 
every cross-roads in favor of his party, became its candidate for 
Lieutenant-Governor, and remained one of its strongest adherents until 
its dissolution, when he became a Democrat. 

For a number of years Mr. Morrison was a leader of the Democracy 
of Southern Illinois, and was far in the advance upon all public ques- 
tions. He has represented the counties of St. Clair and Monroe in the 



JAMES L. D. MORRISON. 205 

State Senate, and St. Clair in the House. For years he was the leader 
of the Anti-State-policy party, and he it was who pricked the bubble 
and enabled St. Louis to gain the roads concentrating at Alton under 
the State-policy system, and which brought to a close the war against 
St. Louis. 

Mr. Morrison was always a very active railroad man, and ever advo- 
cated this policy in Illinois. He secured the charter of the Ohio and 
Mississippi when no one asked for it ; he also introduced the Illinois 
Central bill in the Legislature, advocating the measure in a speech 
of much force. The Belleville road, and the original Bruff charter of 
the Vandalia Hne, owe their existence to his energy against the State 
policy. The Ohio and Mississippi charter was passed under very 
peculiar circumstances. Governor Wood, of Quincy, had given Mr. 
Morrison to understand that he would vote for the original Bruft' charter. 
The two parties in the Senate stood thirteen State policy, twelve Anli- 
State. Wood's vote, on the final passage, was necessary to carry it, and 
his was the last on the calender. Some misgivings existed on both 
sides as to the way he was going to vote, and when he voted No ! amidst 
the most furious excitement, Mr. Morrison rushed across the Senate 
Chamber to Wood's seat to get him to change his vote. Gillespie, 
seeing the movement, also rushed over to Wood's seat; a personal 
coUision occurred between the two enthusiastic members, and the 
Senate adjourned in a perfect bedlam of uproar and commotion. Sena- 
tor Wood immediately promised to vote for a railroad to Vincennes, 
and two days after, the Ohio and Mississippi was chartered as a peace- 
oftering. 

Mr. Morrison was a most unrelenting enemy of Know-Nothingism. 
On the floor of the Senate Chamber he denounced in unmeasured and 
forcible terms the doings and workings of that secret organization, 
and such was the effect of his speech that resolutions condemnatory of 
the order were immediately passed. 

Upon the breaking out of the Mexican war, Mr. Morrison raised the 
first company of volunteers in Illinois, and coming to St. Louis, tendered 
its services to the St. Louis Legion. This, however, was rejected, and 
the company was made the nucleus of the Second Illinois regiment, of 
which he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel. This regiment, at Buena 
Vista, lost thirteen commissioned officers and ninety men killed. Upon 
the close of the war, the Legislature of Illinois presented Colonel 
Morrison with a sword, suitably inscribed, in recognition of his services 
in the field. 



2o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Retiring from the army, he again turned his attention to the practice 
of the law, and finally to land speculations, in which he amassed 
quite a large fortune, the most of which he has spent in indulging an 
inordinate desire for foreign travel, having made some four or five 
different trips across the Atlantic, and passed several years in Europe, 
visiting the principal points of interest in the Old World. 

Colonel Morrison is a man of no mean or ordinar}^ legal attainments, 
and possesses an order of talent which would have secured him promi- 
nence at the Bar had he given his maturer years to his profession. He 
has not practiced law in Missouri, except in such cases as he himself is 
personally interested in. He is now engaged in prosecuting several very 
important cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, upon 
what is known as the Gregoire league square, near St. Louis, 4,500 
arpents of which he contends belong to his wife and himself. 

He has ever taken an active part in politics. Immediately upon his 
joining the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress. The Repub- 
licans looked upon him as a renegade, and a partisan speech of Hon. 
Joshua Giddings called forth from Colonel Morrison one of the happiest 
eftbrts of his life. It was arranged among the Illinoisians that he should 
be tortured by all kinds of questions, in order to weaken his argument. 
Morrison had twenty-four hours' notice of this intention ; and one of 
the most interesting running contests that ever occurred in the House 
ensued. Quick at repartee, he baffled his interrogators, and proved 
himself a match in debate for the entire Republican delegation from 
Illinois. He has ever since declined political honors, but never neglects 
an opportunity to assist his political friends. 

In 1842, Colonel Morrison was married to Miss Mar3^Cartin, daughter 
of Governor Cartin of Illinois. Three children living are the fruits of 
this marriao-e. 

In 1861, he formed his second matrimonial connection with Miss 
Adele Sarp3s daughter of the late John B. Sarp}-, an old and eminent 
merchant of St. Louis. Of this marriage, two daughters are living. 
The present Mrs. Morrison is one of the most accomplished ladies of 
St. Louis, speaking the English, French and German languages fluently, 
and exhibiting a high order of talent in man}^ of the fine arts, especially 
painting, of which many exhibitions of her skill now adorn the walls of 
their city residence. 



MRS. ANNE L. HUNT. 



IN this year of our Lord, 1875, when centennial celebrations are 
taking place or are in preparation all over our land, there is living in 
St. Louis, with faculties almost as bright as in girlhood, a lady, 
whose recollections extend into that almost traditionary period when 
this city was a hamlet, and a few determined men maintained the 
supremacy of civilization inside the fortification that gave them security. 

Mrs. Anne L. Hunt, the only daughter of Hon. J. B. C. Lucas, 
and sister of the late Hon. James H. Lucas, is a relic of the grace and 
culture of the earlier times. With unclouded recollection and choice 
descriptive phrase, she can now trace the little incidents and circum- 
stances that fill in the picture of the earlv French settlement, the 
kindl}^ spirit, the transplanted cultivation, the proper pride, that made 
up the charm of a community never lacking in the graces of social life. 

John B. C. Lucas, a Frenchman by birth, the father of Mrs. Hunt, 
was educated in the law at Caen, Normandy. His father before him 
was a King's Counsellor at Pont-Audemer. When Benjamin Franklin 
was received at the French Court and accorded so high distinction in 
one of the proudest and most polite capitals of the world, Mr. Lucas 
came to the determination of pushing his own fortunes in that new 
world where merit was the measure of success. Himself a 3'ounger 
son, and bounded in by restrictions of which he was impatient, he came 
to America. When the United States acquired possession of the vast 
territory of Louisiana, he was living near Pittsburg, and was a Repre- 
sentative in the United States Congress. He had previously visited 
St. Louis, and his wife was highly desirous of making their home in a 
French colony, and averse to a residence in Washington, where his 
public duties called him. He resigned his seat in Congress, and was 
appointed United States Commissioner for the adjudication of land titles 
in this district, then known b}' the name of Upper Louisiana. He was 
first appointed judge and commissioner for the adjustment of land titles 
in 1805, and was from time to time re-appointed, until the admission of 
Missouri as a State in 1820, when he retired from public life. His 



2oS bio(;raphical sketches. 

duties during that period were arduous and delicate, involving, as they 
did, the adjudication of land claims growing out of loosely defined 
grants under different occupations. Earl}^ in the month of June 1805, 
he embarked with his family in a flat-boat for his new home beyond the 
Mississippi. Arriving at the mouth of the Ohio, the rest of the voyage 
was made in a keel-boat, and the whole journey occupied about three 
months, as he landed in this city early in September. Anne Lucas was 
born on the 23d of September 1796, and was at the time of this voyage 
an observing child of eight 3'ears of age. The dangers of the trip 
were by no means contemptible. The Indians, though not hostile, were 
not to be depended on, and Mrs. Hunt remembers that when passing 
Shawneetown in the night, her mother was much terrified at the yells 
with which they were celebrating some extraordinary occasion. 

The St. Louis of 1805 that Mrs. Hunt remembers, would be to the 
eyes of the present, a very queer, old-fashioned town. The landing 
was about Market street, and above that point extended a blufl' upon 
the river tront. A high wall protected the rear from the treacherous 
savages. On the inside of the wall were steps that the soldiers climbed 
to look over the top for observation. At the corners of the wall were 
towers. But three or four houses in the place enjoyed the luxurious 
distinction of having plank floors, most of them being floored with 
puncheons. There was no saw-mill in St. Louis or its vicinity, and 
plank had to be brought from a distance. So, too, there was no 
painting done, and but two of the trading houses or stores had painted 
signs. These were "Faulkner & Comages," and "Hunt & Hankinson's 
New Cash Store." These, the imported specimens of a foreign art, 
were spelled over and over again by the children, and seemed to them 
the emblems of metropolitan dignity. The stores kept all classes of 
goods. Everything they had to sell arrived by the most costly trans- 
portation — over the mountains from the East, and then down the Ohio 
by flat-boat, and up the Mississippi by keel-boat. The passage across 
the mountains was dangerous. Even up to 1814, and later, gentlemen 
crossing the Alleghanies would unite in parties, and hire guides and 
escorts for their protection. The first English school was taught by a 
man named Rotchford, who joined the expedition of Aaron Burr, which 
came to such an untimely end in the pursuit of a dazzling dream of 
empire. Rotchford was succeeded by Tompkins, and the latter has 
been frequently spoken of as the first teacher of an English school. 

Hon. J. B. C. Lucas' family consisted of his wife, who came with 
him from France, his sons, Robert, Charles, William and James, and 



MRS. ANNA L. HUNT. 209 

an only daughter, Anne, who subsequently became Mrs. Hunt. The 
younger boys attended the village school, but the mother charged her- 
self with the instruction of the girl up to the time of her death, when a 
teacher was employed in the family. When Mr. Lucas first came to 
St. Louis, he built a house on Second street. Later, about 1812, he 
built anew on what is now the corner of Seventh and Market streets, 
and was thought by some to be imprudent in living out so far, and 
exposing a grown daughter to the danger of being stolen away by the 
Indians. It was he who laid out the town from Market to St. Charles 
street, and from Fourth to Seventh streets, about 1827 or 1828. 

Miss Anne Lucas and Captain Theodore Hunt were married in June 
1815. Mrs. Hunt had, by this marriage, eight children, only three of 
whom lived beyond the age of childhood, and these, a son and two 
daughters, are now living. Captain Hunt had been a naval officer, but 
resigned and came to St. Louis. Here he held the office of recorder 
for many years, until the election of General Jackson led to another 
appointment. Subsequently he was engaged in trade with Manuel Lisa. 
St. Louis was the depot for the goods with which they purchased furs. 
The furs were shipped to New York by the way of New Orleans. 
Captain Hunt died in 1832, and four years later Mrs. Hunt married 
Wilson P. Hunt, a cousin of her first husband. Wilson P. Hunt was 
one of the early merchants of St. Louis. In 1809, he had crossed the 
Rocky Mountains, and in the pursuit of trade, had gone to the mouth 
of the Columbia River. He died in 1842, leaving no children. 

The clearness of Mrs. Hunt's early recollections received a striking 
confirmation in 1844, when, with her husband, she visited her birth- 
place for the first time since she had left it forty years before. The 
picture of it which she carried in her mind was as distinct and sharply 
cut as the outline of a cameo that might be held in the hand. From 
her description they were able, by no other clue, to find the old place — 
changed indeed, yet, in all its permanent features, the very original 
of which her recollection carried the copy. 

It is not impossible that to the resolute character of Mrs. Hunt's 
mother, to which may have been added something of prophetic light, 
may be traced the foundation of some of the noblest fortunes of our 
city. Mr. Lucas never exhibited a desire to own real estate, but she, 
on the contrary, was anxious to own lots. Once, when they lived near 
Pittsburgh, he had taken a lot for a debt when he found he could get 
nothing else, and had afterward traded it for a horse. In time the 
same piece of ground came to bear a value of thirty thousand dollars, 

14 



2IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and Mrs, Lucas held the opinion that much the same character of rise 
would take place in St. Louis. She certainly had all the argument on 
her side, in view of the one piece of experience she could quote, and 
Hon. J. B. C. Lucas, instead of lending out his salary as he had been 
accustomed to do, bought a lot two arpens in width, commencing at 
Fourth street, and running back to what is now Jefferson avenue, 
twenty-four streets from the river. In time he bought seven of these 
lots, extending from Market street to near what is now St. Charles 
street. This territory, covering over one hundred of the most valua- 
ble blocks in the city of St. Louis, cost him then about a dollar and 
a half an acre. Had he been gifted with an actual prescience he could 
have made no more productive investment for his children. 

Mrs. Hunt, after six years of wedded life with her second husband, 
was again a widow in 1842. Her cares and duties have been found 
within the domain that bounds true womanly ambition — in the family 
and social life. Blessed with a fortune unusually large, and happy in 
an interesting famil}^ that now numbers among its members almost a 
score of grandchildren, and nearly as many great-grandchildren, her 
life has been one of practical beneficence and unostentatious liberality. 
Possessing in a marked degree the strong vitality and quick apprehen- 
sion which distinguish the family to which she belongs, she has taken a 
deep interest in the improvement of the city that holds the objects of her 
hope and love, and which has achieved every stage of glory during the 
period of her lively recollection. Her charities have doubtless been 
more extended and munificent than those of any other individual now 
living in St. Louis. Were it permitted to name a probable aggregate, 
or to specify single instances of munificence, few could fail to be aston- 
ished, and none could withhold admiration. Yet all this has been 
unostentatiously done, as becomes one who had in view but the gratifi- 
cation of a pure and noble impulse. 



HON. ERASTUS WELLS. 



IT maybe said, with a good deal of truth, that the lives of our self- 
made men furnish a more satisfactor}- and practical illustration of 
"histor}' teaching by example" than an}^ other to which the attention 
of our young men can be directed, especially that large class of young 
men who, unfriended and alone, are compelled to strike out in the 
bleak world to find, or make, their future sphere and home. While rich 
and poor live in like abundance — the former in wealth and the latter in 
hope — it is also true that the great end of a good education is to form a 
reasonable man. The young man who, with superior advantages, com- 
prehends this fact, has already made a good beginning in life. 

The self-made men of the West are those who have improved wisely 
the golden opportunities of the most impressible period of their lives, 
and who have never abused any portion of the remainder. While 
the countr}' has many notable examples of self-made men, the West 
furnishes a class of men who have fought the battle of life under 
greater hardships and severer struggles than, perhaps, any other section 
of the countr3% and their victor}^ has been proportionateh' more brilliant 
than that of the same class elsewhere. In the West, to hew out an 
empire from the wilderness, has taxed the hands and brains of all to the 
utmost. The self-made men of the West belong to that large class of 
the human family whose energies are developed by opposition. They 
commenced life aggressively, and the harder events pushed them the 
more aggressive they became. They never slackened under any cir- 
cumstances, and refused to halt before any obstacles that stood in their 
way. Forge and anvil, axe or adze, spade or shovel — no matter what 
implement they worked with — they drove ahead from morning until 
night. If the mortgage clung to the cottage, hard work must lift it. 
They pulled bravely against every tide — held up with buoyant hearts 
and unflinching courage under skies that, perhaps, were often ashen 
and sober, and walked with a firm step over "leaves that were often 
withered and sere." Theirs has been no ro3'al road to success, nor was 
there any reserve corps to step up at the last moment, fresh and vigor- 



212 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ous, to bear off the laurels. All alike have borne the brunt of the 
battle. The fame of fortune perhaps nerved their younger days with 
its bright visions, and the stimulus of hope urged them on. When the 
day was won, the rank and file received their just reward. 

Erastus Wells, of St. Louis, is one of those self-made men who is 
now reaping the reward of that indomitable energy and industry evinced 
in his early life. Mr. Wells was born in Jefferson County, New York, 
December 2, 1823. By the death of his father he was left an orphan, 
and penniless, at an early age, and he experienced all the hardships 
incident to such a start in life. 

From his twelfth to his sixteenth year he worked on a farm, and 
during the winter months attended a district school. The school-house 
was built of logs, and it required a tramp of two miles through the 
deep snows of those Northern winters to reach it. At the age of six- 
teen, seized with a spirit of enterprise, he left the farm to seek his 
fortune in the world. 

Shortly after his father's death, young Wells proceeded to Water- 
town, New York, where he soon obtained a situation in a grocery store, 
at a salary of eight dollars per month. He remained here but a short 
time, for in the year 1839 ^^^ ^^^ ^^"^ ^^ Lockport, New York, engaged 
as a clerk, for a firm in which ex-Governor Washington Hunt was a 
partner. Here his salary only ranged from eight to twelve dollars per 
month. During these early years he found an abundance of hard 
work, and had to exercise the most rigid economy. But even out of 
his paltry salary he managed to save something. At the end of three 
or four years he had laid by the sum of $140, an amount in those days 
of considerable magnitude to a young man who had earned it by hard 
work and close economy. With this sum in his pocket, young Wells 
turned his face towards the West, of which he had heard glowing 
accounts, and decided to reach St. Louis, then one of the most enter- 
prising points on the Western frontier. 

Mr. Wells arrived in St. Louis in September 1843, and at once 
engaged in business. He formed a partnership with Calvin Case, and 
on November 2d, of the same year, started the first omnibus line 
ever seen west of the Mississippi river. The rolling-stock of this line 
consisted, at the commencement, of a single 'bus. It was a very rude 
affair compared with the splendid establishments seen in St. Louis to- 
day, having no glass windows, but curtains instead, and elliptic springs 
in place of the present low flat ones. It was built in this city at a cost 
of two hundred dollars. The route was from Third and Market, along 



HON. ERASTUS WELLS. 213 

Third and Broadway to North Market street, and the receipts for the 
first six months did not exceed $1.50 per day. We have ascertained 
that the sum named, as the daily receipts during the period given, is 
approximately correct, — for while Mr. Wells was not only proprietor of 
the line, he was also driver, fare taker, and, during many of his trips, 
the sole occupant of his vehicle. 

The citizens of St. Louis praised the enterprise, and admired the 
pluck and energy of the man who had started it, but they were accus- 
tomed to walk — it was cheaper, and they continued to walk. The 
omnibus business did not pay until Mr. Wells was nearly discouraged. 
At this period the growth of the city was rapid ; its limits were extend- 
ing ; residences were removed farther out toward the suburbs, and the 
business of the city was spreading out over a broader area. It was not 
long before the fact was demonstrated to many of the more prosperous, 
well-to-do citizens, that riding was more profitable than walking, when 
time was considered. 

In 1844, business had so increased that the enterprising proprietor 
put on another 'bus. Mr. Wells now began to make money. Within a 
period of five years, business on the line had so increased that they had 
from twelve to fifteen 'busses running on said line. For nearly two 
years Mr. Wells continued to drive one of the 'busses himself. He 
was not afraid of work ; he had from early boyhood systematically 
learned to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and he was 
not the man to lean on others for subsistence. He was a deserving 
man, always pushing things : with a brain by nature and habit nicely 
adjusted to the reception, retention and consideration of one thing at a 
time. But he was a man of expansive ideas, restive under restraint, 
and in the wide domain of Industry he looked about to see what more 
could be accomplished. The omnibus line already started was now 
permanently established, and, finding a favorable opportunity, Mr. 
Wells sold out his interest, and remained out of business for about one 
year. He then purchased a small lead factory ; but contact with the 
poisonous lead soon prostrated him on a sick bed, and caused him to 
abandon the business. He then erected a saw mill, located in the 
upper part of the city, but subsequently leased it to others. 

In the latter part of 1850, Erastus Wells, Calvin Case and one or two 
others, forming the firm of Case & Co., purchased all the lines in the 
city, and established a line of busses between St. Louis and Belleville, 
Illinois, and subsequently one on Olive street, between Fourth and 
Seventeenth streets. The Belleville line was very remunerative ; the 



214 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

fare each way was fifty cents, the busses being always crowded. In 
January 1856, the copartnership was dissolved, by the death of the 
senior member, who was killed in the memorable accident on the Pacific 
Railroad, at the Gasconade bridge. The difierent lines were owned 
and operated by the surviving partners, but separately, until 1859, when 
the street railway mania reached St. Louis, and the omnibuses were 
speedily superseded. 

The St. Louis, Missouri, Citizens' and People's Railway Companies 
were formed in the spring of 1859, and the first compan}^ that started 
their cars, was the Missouri, on their Olive street line, on July 4, 1859. 
The first president was Erastus Wells, who has filled that position up to 
the present time. They have now nine miles of track. Thirty-two 
years ago there was one omnibus running, carrying not more than fifty 
passengers per diem ; now we have ten distinct lines of street railway, 
each doing a prosperous business and representing a large amount of 
invested capital. 

So far, we find that Mr. Wells' life had been an active and progres- 
sive one. Unbefriended and penniless at the start, he had had much to 
contend against, and many things to overcome that would have discour- 
aged many young men of less determination than he possessed. He 
found those at whose hands he sought employment far from being gen- 
erous or magnanimous ; but he was not long in learning that he would 
have to depend upon his own physical and mental resources to become 
a self-made man. He found life as earnest, active and aggressive in 
his early days as he finds it, perhaps, to-day ; the road to fame and 
wealth a long one ; but where there is an earnestness of purpose and a 
persistent, untiring devotion to business, there will always be an ultimate 
reward. Mr. Wells has always cultivated a catholic spirit. He was 
always ready to receive suggestions that might be profitable to him. His 
usefulness to his fellow-men has been increased by the broad and 
liberal views he entertains on all subjects of public policy, and by his 
refusal to be bound by the sectarian notions, dogmas and fanaticisms 
which are found hanging to the skirts of so many professions in life. 
He has been one of the foremost in ever3'thing that pertained to the 
city's welfare. 

For a period of fifteen years he was a member of the City Council. 
He was first elected to that body in 1848, was re-elected in 1854,. 
and remained in the Council until March i, 1869, when he resigned to 
take his seat in Congress, March 4th of the same month. During the 
long period he served the city, his influence by voice and vote was. 



HON. ERASTUS WELLS. 215 

always in favor of such judicious and timely measures as were best 
calculated to advance the glory of the city, and to add to the prosperity 
of its citizens. He was in favor of the adoption of strict sanitary 
measures. Formerly this city used to be considered unhealthy. Its 
miasmatic fevers and occasional epidemics were notorious, but to-day 
it is the healthiest large city on the American continent. Much might 
be said here concerning the sanitary condition of the city, and in kindly 
remembrance and acknowledgment to the man who was foremost in 
inaugurating measures for the preservation of the health of its citizens, 
but the limits of this sketch forbid. 

It was while Mr. Wells was serving in the Council, as chairman of 
the Committee on Waterworks, that his serious attention was turned to 
this subject, and seeing the great deficiency in the supply of water for 
a city making such rapid strides, he agitated the question of building 
new works — works that should be on a scale commensurate with the 
wants of the city for years to come. In that year he was appointed 
on a special committee to visit the principal Eastern cities and examine 
the system of waterworks in each, and report upon the same. Mr. 
Wells was the only member of the committee who took upon himself 
the performance of this delicate and arduous duty. He visited New 
York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, Louisville and 
Cleveland, being kindly received at all these cities, and was given 
every opportunity to make a thorough inspection of the water supply 
in use at each point. Upon his return he made an elaborate and 
valuable report of what he had seen and learned, and the question 
received a fresh importance through the information thus imparted. 
Mainly through his efi^brts an "act" passed the Legislature, at the 
subsequent session, authorizing the cit}^ to issue bonds to the extent of 
$3,000,000, to commence the construction of the present magnificent 
waterworks — among the finest to be found in the country — and which 
suppl}^ the city as if from an inexhaustible fountain. Mr. Wells was 
tendered by Governor Fletcher a commission as one of the Board of 
Water Commissioners, but he respectfully declined it. This tender, 
coming from a political opponent, was a flattering compliment to Mr. 
Wells, as the position was a responsible and honorable one,' and it was 
made without any solicitation on his part or even on the part of his 
friends. 

But this was not all that was to be accomplished to promote the 
public interests and the public good. Mr. Wells' work did not end 
here. He knew that, as a representative of the people's interests, he 



2l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

owed society something more than merely doing what could be done to 
make the physical air of the city healthy, and providing an ample supply 
of water to contribute to personal cleanliness, and prevent the disasters 
arising from great conflagrations. There is a moral atmosphere in 
every large city, being imbibed daily by every grade of society, against 
which the upright man and good citizen will have to stand with uplifted 
hands. You may make, by your sanitary regulations, every particle of 
air we breathe, and every drop of water we drink, as pure as crystal- 
lized carbon ; you may discover remedies that will antagonize the specific 
poison of disease ; yet they all go for naught so long as there is in the 
body politic a class of men who have no moral instincts or sensibilities. 
It is not too much to say that no one knew better than Mr. Wells the 
inadequacy of the police system of St. Louis, under the old regime, at 
the time he was in the Council ; and when he went East to investigate 
the question of water supply, he took special pains to look into the 
different police systems of the several cities which he visited. He 
learned from the mayors of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, that, 
in their opinion, Baltimore had the best metropolitan police system of 
any city in the Union. At that time complaints came up from almost 
every city of any size, especially the Eastern cities, of the great defects 
of their police regulations. Baltimore especially had passed into the 
hands of a desperate class of men, known as "plug uglies," against 
whom the police authorities were powerless, and this unruly and turbu- 
lent element was not placed under control until the Legislature of 
Maryland had passed what is known as the "Metropolitan Police Bill." 
Mr. Wells had brought a copy of this bill home with him, and after 
changing it to meet the laws of Missouri, and to comply with the cit}' 
charter, he secured the consent of Francis Whittaker, Henry Keyser, 
George K. Budd and Bernard Pratt, to put their names in the act, they 
to serve as the first board of police commissioners of this city ; and after 
a severe struggle in the Council, a resolution was passed recommending 
its passage by the Legislature. Mr. Wells visited Jefferson City, and 
laid the resolution with the bill before the Legislature during the session 
of i86o-'6i. Claib. Jackson was Governor of the State at that time, 
and there was a good deal of political excitement. The party in power 
insisted on striking out the parties named in the bill for commissioners, 
and leaving it with the Governor to make the appointments. The 
friends of the bill were successful in securing its passage in the form in 
which it was presented by Mr. Wells, and the Governor signed it. Its 
provisions were at once carried into effect, and a new era in the police 



HON. ERASTUS WELLS. 217 

system of St. Louis commenced — one that, after a trial of neariy fifteen 
years, has proved acceptable to all parties, and has produced results 
beneficial to the public interests. 

In 1850 Mr. Wells was united in marriage to a daughter of the Hon. 
John F. Henry now of this city, and by this lady he has three children. 
In 1865, seeking rest and recreation, and to gratify a long-cherished 
desire, Mr. Wells made a trip to Europe, taking with him his oldest 
son. After visiting many of the principal cities in Great Britian and 
France, he took a French steamer and went to Lisbon. After some 
time spent here, he visited the Cape de Verde Islands, and extended his 
journey to Brazil, and at Rio embarked for home, returning to St. 
Louis in 1866. 

The congressional career of Mr. Wells, as we have stated, com- 
menced in 1868, since which time he has been continuously a member 
of the House of Representatives of the United States. At the last 
election (November 3, 1874,) ^^ "^^^ re-elected for a fourth term by a 
majority of nearly three to one. In politics Mr. Wells is a Democrat, 
but he is popular with all parties, and he received many votes from 
those politically opposed to him. In Congress he has been a close 
observer, and a diligent worker in behalf of the State and city of his 
adoption. He is a l/ve man, possessed of sound views on all questions 
of public policy, and has accomplished more work for his city and 
the West than many of his predecessors have done. Without being 
brilliant, his speeches show careful thought and study, and his constitu- 
ents are satisfied with his capacity, his energy, with his respectable 
culture and enlarged views — in a word, with his unquestioned honest}' 
and practical common sense. Through his efforts Congress has appro- 
priated the sum of $4,000,000 for building the new post-office and 
custom house, now in course of erection on the block between Eighth 
and Ninth on Olive street. Until his advent in Congress not a dollar 
had ever been appropriated for the improvement of the Mississippi 
River between the mouth of the Missouri and the Meramec. Between 
these points he was successful in having a government survey made, 
and for that purpose an appropriation of $200,000 was set apart ; also a 
further appropriation of $300,000 for the improvement of the channel 
of the river between the mouth of the Meramec and Cairo. 

In 1873, he was the prime mover in causing to be held here the Con- 
gressional Convention which assembled that year, the deliberations of 
which were so important to Western interests. He projected the Con- 
gressional trip of that year to the Indian Territory, which proceeded 



2l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

south to Galveston, and thence to New Orleans, to inspect the mouths 
of the Mississippi, that Eastern members might have personal knowl- 
edge of the serious obstructions existing there, and which so seriously 
affected the whole commerce of the Mississippi Valley. The fruition 
of all this was the passage of the bill known as the "Eads Jetty Bill," 
during the last session of the Forty-third Congress. The bill relating 
to the Indian Territory, known as the Oklahoma Bill, is also a measure 
which Mr. Wells is persistently working for at the present time. 

Mr. Wells has been connected with many important enterprises, and 
has filled several responsible positions in connection with them. He 
was a director of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Company for several 
years ; he was president of the Accommodation Bank for six years ; 
he is still largely interested in street railroads ; is also president of the 
narrow-guage railroad between this city and Florissant ; is a director in 
the Commercial Bank : and in 1864 was a member of the convention 
called to prepare a new city charter, which was subsequently adopted 
by the Legislature. 

In private life Mr. Wells is greatly beloved by all who know him. 
He is a man wholly free from ostentation or display. His manners are 
those of the thorough Western man — frank, genial and kindly. Suc- 
cess in life has in no way changed him, and this is a principal reason 
for his popularity. Political opponents credit him with industry and 
fidelity to the interests of those he represents. 

Erastus Wells has fought his way up to his present position earnestly 
and manfully. Having become a leader, he still remains one of the 
people, and thus he is one of the best examples of the self-made men 
of our times. 



HON. GEORGE H. REA. 



(AJMONG the many sterling- business men of St. Louis who have 
iZ_ jL fought their way successfully through life, and by dint of close 
application and shrewd management have built up large fortunes, 
no one is more deserving of mention, or stands higher in the estimation 
of his fellow-men, than Captain George H. Rea. He has not been 
so long a resident of this city as many others, but has accomplished 
much more in a few years than some others have in a life-time. 

Captain Rea is of Massachusetts origin, having been born in the city 
of Boston on the 26th day of April 1816. 

His father, Joshua B. Rea, came from a French-Canadian family, and 
his mother, whose maiden name was Boynton, descended from one of 
the earliest Puritan families. His father dying when he was an infant, 
his early education and training devolved upon the mother. He was 
kept at school until fifteen years of age, and then, as was the custom 
more in the early day than now, was apprenticed to learn the tanner's 
trade, at the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. He learned his trade 
thoroughly, and by the time his apprenticeship was over had picked up 
much valuable information about other kinds of business. For a few 
years he worked as a journeyman in various New England towns, 
saving his earnings imtil an opportunity offered for investment in 
business. Believing, however, that the broad country outside of New 
England afforded a better field for business operations, he started out 
to explore it. 

In 1849, we find him located at Waynesboro, Tennessee, where he 
built up, in a few years, a large and profitable business in hides and 
leather. Here he probably would have remained permanently had not 
the political differences between the Northern and Southern States 
assumed an aspect so threatening. Mr. Rea was fortunate enough to 
dispose of his interest in Tennessee a year or two before the war 
began, and having formed valuable business acquaintances in St. Louis, 
was induced to come here and establish himself in business. He 
opened a hide and leather store at No. 76 North Levee, and in a year 



220 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

or two was doing the largest business in that line of any merchant in 
the city. During this time he had become extensively known among 
business men throughout the city and neighboring towns, and was 
regarded favorably on 'Change and in financial circles. 

At the close of the war, when the national banking system was inaug- 
urated, Mr. Rea had on hand a surplus of capital, a considerable pro- 
portion of which was invested in Government securities. He concluded 
to join with others in starting a national bank, and accordingly took the 
necessary steps to obtain a charter. The Second National Bank was 
established with Mr. Rea as president. His hide and leather business 
was disposed of to good advantage, and his attention for a time was 
directed chiefly to banking. The Second National Bank became a 
favorite place of deposit for merchants, millers and others, and did a 
very profitable business. 

Mr. Rea had many opportunities presented for investing money in 
business enterprises, but he exercised great caution before engaging in 
any of them. He became the owner of steamboat and railroad stocks, 
however, to such an extent that he was obliged to devote a portion of 
his time to looking after these new interests. The Mississippi Valley 
Transportation Company, under his management, became a flourishing 
corporation, doing an immense business with barges in transporting 
grain and other produce down the river to New Orleans and interme- 
diate points. 

In 1866, Mr. Rea was elected by the Republican party to represent 
the Thirty-fourth Senatorial District in the State Senate. He was 
appointed chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and occu- 
pied positions in various other committees. Though not much given to 
speech-rnaking, he wielded a strong influence during his four 3'ears' 
term in the State Senate, and aided in securing important legislation for 
the city of St. Louis. His extensive business experience and knowl- 
edge of financial matters eminently qualified him for the position of 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and it is doubtful if the 
duties were ever discharged more satisfactorily. 

For three years Mr. Rea was one of the directors of the Missouri 
Pacific Railroad. It was at a time when that company had many diffi- 
culties to encounter. Some of the stockholders were at war with the 
controling directors, and endeavoring to displace them. The latter held 
out heroically for a long time, but were at length forced to yield to the 
stronger moneyed influences brought to bear against them by the late 
Hudson E. Bridge. Mr. Rea displayed good combative powers in the 



HON. GEO. H. REA. 221 

contest, and though retiring from the directory, did so with honor to 
himself, and in no wise the worse financially. 

Having many interests to look after, he resigned the presidency of 
the Second National Bank in 1873, though he still remained a director. 
He continued to manage the affairs of the Barge Company, and invested 
largely in Western railroads. At the present time, he owns a very 
large amount of railroad stock in Kansas and the Territories, and is 
projecting new and important railroad lines. 

Mr. Rea built the branch road from Pleasant Hill, on the Missouri 
Pacific, to Lawrence, Kansas, a distance of sixty-one miles. He has 
energy and boldness enough to undertake any enterprise in railroad 
building, and would undoubtedly succeed, however extensive it might 
be. His business plans have been most successfully carried out all 
through life, and, as a result, he has accumulated a handsome fortune. 
He lives in comfortable style in the western suburbs of the city, and can 
well afford to retire from active pursuits ; but his busy brain is ever 
planning, and his industrious habits are so firmly fixed, that he would 
not be happy if forced to give up work. He has done much to aid 
public enterprises ; gives with a liberal hand to deserving charities, and 
scrupulously performs his obligations to his fellow-men. 





/^ 



Cc 




o 



LOUIS VITAL BOGY. 



T OUIS VITAL BOGY, our worthy representative in the United 
1 / States Senate, is the descendant of one of the old French famihes 
which, long prior to the foundation of St. Louis by Pierre Laclede 
Liguest, in 1764, came from Canada and settled the ancient towns of 
Cahokia, Kaskaskia, St. Phillip, Prairie Du Rocher and Fort Chartres, 
on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, then a part of the vast 
territory owned by France in the New World. 

His grandfather, Joseph Bogy, came from Canada, and first settled 
in the town of Kaskaskia, where, a few 3'ears after his arrival, he was 
married to Miss Placy. About the 3^ear 1786 or 1787, he left Kaskas- 
kia, with his family, to go to the country now known as Arkansas, and 
settled at the Old Post, then the home of a few French Canadians, 
pioneers, who, like himselt^ had been drawn there by the Indian trade, 
and being then truly the home of the wild Indians. At this place, he 
engaged in the Indian fur trade, and for many 3'ears he carried on this 
business with the different tribes who were roaming over this extended 
region, hunting the game of the forest. For a long time, he had his 
trading establishment at a place called Bogy Depot, a point at present 
of some note in the Choctaw countr}^ 

In a country so new, and where there were so few white people, 
the facilities for educating the rising generation were of course very 
limited ; indeed, it may be said there were none at all. Joseph Bogv, 
the father of Louis, was consequent^ sent to New Orleans to be edu- 
cated. By the peace of 1763, all the country west of the Mississippi 
River passed to Spain ; at the same time Canada and all the land east of 
same river were transferred to England. Owing to the fact that all the 
inhabitants in the newly acquired territory were of French blood, Spain 
felt it to be to her interest to treat the people with great kindness, so as 
to attach them to the new Government ; and hence, soon after taking 
possession of the country, Spain established in the city of New Orleans 
a large school, maintained at Government expense. To this school 
Joseph Bogy, as well as several other young men from the same section 



224 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



of country, were taken, and there he was educated. All boys educated 
at this Government school had the right to enter the army of Spain, or 
secure employment in a civil capacity under the Government. In 
accordance with this regulation, Joseph Bogy entered the civil service, 
and was, for a time, one of the private secretaries of Governor Morales, 
then the Governor-General of Louisiana. 

Joseph Bogy was born at Kaskaskia, and was, perhaps, six years 
old when his father moved from there to his new home at the Post of 
Arkansas. In the year 1805 he came to this State, then a Territory, 
and setded in the town of Ste. Genevieve, which was at the time a very 
important place, as it was the commercial point for the lead mining 
region. Mr. Joseph Bogy filled many public stations during his long 
residence in this town, and was a member of both branches of the 
Legislature under the Territory and State. He was truly a man of 
intelligence, and of high character and standing, and died in February 
1842, leaving seven children — four sons and three daughters. In the 
year 1805, soon after he came to this portion of country, he married 
Marie Beauvais, the daughter of Vital Beauvais, and mother of Louis, 
the subject of this sketch. This venerable lady is yet living, at the age 
of eighty-eight, and with her intellect clear and sound. 

The Beauvais family came to this country from Canada at a very 
early period, perhaps about the year 1740, or even before. They were, 
therefore, also pioneers, attracted here, like all the other settlers from 
Canada, by the Indian fur trade. Louis, the subject of this sketch, is 
consequently a descendant, on both his father's and mother's side, of 
pioneers, a bold and brave race of men, who, upwards of a century 
ago, penetrated the vast solitude of the West, and daily encountered the 
no less wild savage, who then roamed across the wilderness of the new 
world as its owner and master, and yielding sullenly to these white 
intruders. It was, consequently, a life of constant exposure and peril, 
in which many of the new settlers lost their lives. 

Louis Vital Bogy was born on the 9th of April, 1813, in the 
town of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. The facilities for education, at that 
early day, were very limited. The French was the language of the 
people, there being yet but few Anglo-Americans in the country, and 
the few who came there found it necessary to learn the French, but not 
the French the English. It was under these disadvantages that the 
subject of our sketch grew up from boyhood to manhood. Fortunately 
for the young people of the town, about the year 1822 or 1823, a 
teacher by the name of Joseph D. Grafton came there from the State of 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 225 

Connecticut. He opened a school for boys and girls. He was a good 
English scholar, and kept a very good school. This school continued 
for years, and at it all the boys and girls of the town were educated. 
Young Louis was sent to this school, where he continued for perhaps 
one year. About the year 1826 his father sent him and a younger 
brother, named Charles, to a school in the country, kept by a Swiss by 
the name of Joseph Hertich. He continued at this school about one 
year, when he was attacked with a white swelling in his right thigh 
bone, which kept him closely confined to bed between two and three 
years. 

In 1830, although yet very lame and walking on crutches, he was 
sent for six months to a Catholic College in the adjoining county of 
Perry. This was the last school he attended. It will be seen that his 
advantages for an education were indeed very limited, and how he has 
overcome such appalling obstacles is a subject of wonder, and worth}- 
of imitation by the young men of the day who may, like him, not be 
blessed with advantages. During his long sickness he read much, and 
laid up a store of desultory and miscellaneous information which has 
proved of the greatest utility to him in his after-life. After leaving the 
school in Perry county, he engaged himself as clerk in the store of a 
merchant, in the town of Ste. Genevieve, of the name of Bossier, at a 
salary of two hundred dollars a year ; one-half of which was payable 
in store goods. His habits of economy, however, enabled him to 
purchase some books from his scanty income, and thus could he 
indulge his passion for reading and study, to which he devoted all his 
evenings, and, now and then, a large part of the night. 

On the expiration of this clerkship he decided to read law ; and so as 
to do this without the distraction which would necessarily surround him 
if he remained with the associates of his youth, he concluded to leave 
his native town, and pursue his studies elsewhere. He consequently 
made an arrangement with Judge Nathaniel Pope, of Kaskaskia, in 
Illinois, to enter his office. On the i6th of January 1832 he left the 
paternal roof for Kaskaskia, crossing the Mississippi River on the ice. 
As evidence of the singular tenacity of purpose of this young man, we 
give place here to a most singular document, the original being in his 
handwriting, and exhibited to us : 

Ste. Genevieve, January 16, 1S32. 

On this day I left home, under charge of Mr. William Shannon, an old friend of my 
father, to go to Kaskaskia, to read lew in the office of Judge Pope. My education is very 
limited, but with hard study I may overcome it. I am determined to try; and my inten- 

15 



226 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 

tion is to i-eturn to my native State to practice law, if I can qualify myself; and, Avhile 

doing so, to work to become United States Senator for my native State, and to work for 

this until I am sixty years old. I will pray God to give me the resolution to persevere in 

this intention. I have communicated this to m^' mother, and given her this paper to 

keep. So help me God. 

Lewis V. Bogy. 

The original of this paper, we saw in the unformed hand-writing of 
a bo}'. It is certain!}' a singular and remarkable document, showing as 
decided a purpose as we ever saw or heard of. And it is strange that 
a purpose apparently so wild, and we may say, unreasonable, should 
have been so singularly realized by the youth who made it. The limit 
for the termination of the period within which he had given his pledge 
to strive for the position of United States Senator was to be the age of 
sixty years ; and it is again very singular that he should realize this life- 
long ambition in his sixtieth year, and within a few months of the expi- 
ration of the period he had fixed. He was elected in January • 1873, 
and in April following he was sixty years old. We dwell on this 
remarkable occurrence in the history of this man, so as to commend it 
to the 3'oung men of the present time, for it teaches this great lesson — 
that perseverance and labor will overcome any obstacle, however great. 
For the long period of fort}— one years he labored to attain the object of 
his early ambition, and, as he informed us, thinking of it — it may be said 
every day, and having it all the time in contemplation. 

Judge Pope was the District Judge of the United States for the Dis- 
trict of Illinois, and had a well-selected library. Besides pursuing his 
law studies, Judge Pope urged him to acquire a knowledge of Latin, as 
being necessary to a professional man. In his youth he had been an 
altar-bo}^ in his native town, and had acquired a knowledge of the 
responses at the Mass. He sought the acquaintance of the Catholic 
priest at Kaskaskia, the Reverend Father Condamine, who was, as is 
generallv the fact with the clergy of that Church, a good Latin scholar, 
and with him he made an agreement to serve as the altar assistant at all 
the masses and funerals, on condition that he on his side gave him a 
lesson every day in Latin. Both faithfully carried out their agreement. 
For this good priest he entertains to this day a sentiment of the greatest 
veneration, for the care and kindness which he bestowed on him at that 
early period of his life. 

In the month of May 1832, the Indian troubles in the northern part 
of the State of Illinois and Territory of Wisconsin, known as the Black 
Hawk war, occurred. Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, issued his 
proclamation for volunteers to suppress these savages. Although yet 



LOUIS V, BOGY. 227 

lame from the white swelHng with which he liad years before been 
afflicted, he immediately volunteered as a private soldier — he joined 
the company of Captain Jacob Feaman, which soon marched to the 
field. This company formed a part of the regiment commanded by 
Colonel Gabriel Jones, which on the complete organization of the volun- 
teer forces, at the rendezvous at Fort Wilburn, was one of the regi- 
ments in the brigade commanded by General Henry. Both Jones 
and Henry were good officers : the same can be said of Captain 
Feaman. No part of the army did more service than this brigade, and 
at the battles of Wisconsin Heights and Bad Axe, it did most efficient 
service. The celebrated Indian chief, Black Hawk, was captured in 
the last engagement, which terminated the war. Abraham Lincoln, 
afterward President of the United States, was a volunteer in this war, 
and a private in the brigade of General Henry. 

On the termination of the war, the subject of this sketch returned to 
Kaskaskia, and resumed his studies with Judge Pope, as well as with 
Father Condamine. Here he remained, studying with great assiduity, 
until December 1833. At this time, by the advice of Judge Pope, he 
left this place to proceed to Lexington, Kentucky, to attend the law 
school of Transylvania University, of which Judge Daniel Mays was 
professor. Professor Mays was not only a man of great ability, but 
was considered the best special pleader in the State. He remained 
here till the spring of 1834. ^^ unusually large number of the. young 
men who attended the law lectures at this institution, during this session, 
became in after-life quite distinguished. Among those remembered 
now may be mentioned Bell, Thompson, Manifee, Tompkins, Powell, 
Allen and Wickliffe, of Kentucky ; Shackleford and Tupper, of Mis- 
sissippi ; John G. Miller, James S. Rollins, Wilham M. McPherson, of 
this State. Bell and Manifee became members of Confess, and were 
considered leading men in that body. Indeed, Manitee was looked 
upon as the rising great man of his State, who in time was to be the 
worthy successor of Henry Clay. Tompkins died young, but already 
considered one of the ablest lawyers in his section of the State. 

Powell was elected Governor, and was United States Senator from 
Kentucky for six years, and ranking as a man of decided talents. 
Thompson became Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and United States 
Senator for six years, ranking in that body with the leading minds in it. 
Allen was distinguished for his literary attainments, and Wickliffe was 
Minister from the country at the Court of Sardinia, and was considered 
one of the ablest writers in his State. Shackleford was a judge of 
reputation in Mississippi, and Tupper was ranked with the best lawyers 



228 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of that State. Of him we shall have something more to say hereafter. 
Rollins and Miller, after acquiring distinction in the Legislature of this 
State, became distinguished members of Congress. McPherson, who 
died in the city of St. Louis about two years ago, acquired distinction 
as a great business character. He was certainly a man of large views 
and of creative mind, backed by a cool head and a firm purpose. It 
is indeed sad to think that all but two of this large list of distinguished 
men, who, in their youth, were so ambitious for distinction, are now 
dead, and their names nearly forgotten, and it is with the view of res- 
cuing their names from complete oblivion that they are so particularly 
mentioned here. Rollins and Bogy are the only two yet surviving, and 
both have passed the meridian of life. It is a pleasure to say, that 
while during this long period, these two men have most of the 
time belonged to different political parties, being together in the Legis- 
lature of their State, and necessarily meeting each other in those political 
conflicts and discussions which occur in such bodies, they have never- 
theless, during all this time, maintained the relations of close personal 
friendship which were formed in early life at the law school. 

On the termination of the winter session of this school, he formed the 
project to become a school teacher, and to get a school in some of the 
interior counties of Kentucky, so as to get the means to attend another 
session at this University. He and Tupper, whose name has alread}' 
been mentioned, formed a partnership for this purpose. Hearing that 
there was an opening for a school in the town of Monticello, in the 
county of Wayne, they left Lexington early in the spring for this place. 
On arriving here they had no trouble in getting a good school of boys 
and girls. Tupper was a graduate of the University of Vermont, and 
was a very good classical scholar. Here they remained till fall, when 
they both returned to Lexington to enter the law school, and remained 
there till the end of the session, when both graduated in the law 
department : Tupper then going to the State of Mississippi to seek for- 
tune and fame, and the subject of this sketch returning to his native 
State. 

It will not be out of place in this sketch to say a few words in relation 
to Tupper, as a very close friendship existed between the two, up to his 
death. His name was Tullius Cicero Tupper, a native of Vermont, 
and a graduate of the University of that State. He went to the State 
of Mississippi to acquire wealth and fame, and succeeded in obtaining 
a fair share of both. But his career in that State was truly a sad one. 
It was his misfortune to have two personal encounters, in both of which 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 229 

he slayed his antagonist. Yet, he was a man of the most amiable dis- 
position, and incapable of doing wrong to anybody, or of being the 
aggressor. But his purpose was fixed and settled, when he decided to 
become a citizen of a Southern community, and particularly of the 
^State of Mississippi at that day ; he had made up his mind to be gov- 
erned by the social law then in force in that community, which was 
never to submit to a personal insult, or fail to exhibit individual courage, 
even although it might be at the expense of human life. Therefore, 
when assailed, he slayed his antagonist. Being a man of refined feel- 
ings and cultivated tastes, it cannot be doubted that these misfortunes 
clouded his life, which, but for them, would no doubt have been a very 
brilliant one. 

Mr. Bogy returned to his native town, reaching there in the month of 
March 1835. His father urged upon him to go to New Orleans to 
practice his profession, giving as his reason for this that the French 
population was quite large in the State of Louisiana, and the French 
language yet in use in the courts of the State. This, however, was not 
the plan of life he had laid down for himself, which was to remain in 
his native State. He therefore declined going to New Orleans, and 
concluded to move to St. Louis. He departed at once, arriving in 
the city on the first day of April 1835. ^^ immediately applied to 
Judge Wash, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, for a hcense, 
which he obtained. He purchased a few law books, took an office, 
and very soon got into a good practice, and continued to devote himself 
to his profession until 1849. ^^ became a candidate for the Legisla- 
ture in 1840, and was elected ; and took his seat as a member of that 
body in November following. This was during the Harrison presiden- 
tial campaign, which passed over the country like a tornado. The 
excitement of the campaign was of course felt in the Legislature ; the 
consequence was, that the session was a very excited one. He was 
then only twent3^-seven years of age, and, perhaps, the youngest mem- 
ber of that body. He took a leading part as a working and business 
man, and a ready speaker. Several young men, who became distin- 
guished in the State afterward, were members of this body also : 

John S. Phelps, from Greene county, then quite young, was there. 
He was kept in Congress by his constituents for eighteen consecutive 
3^ears, and acquired during this long period the reputation of an able 
legislator ; he was at one time chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means, a position never given to any one not considered able and indus- 
trious ; and in addition to all this, he was considered an honest man. 



230 



B I O C; R A P H I C A L SKETCHES 



beyond the reach of those sordid influences which, unfortunately for 
the fame of our public men, so many have yielded to. 

John G. Miller, of Cooper, was also there. He, too, was elected to 
Congress from his district, and was kept there till death overtook him, 
while yet in the prime of life. He also acquired, while in Congress, 
the reputation of an honest and an able man. 

James S. Rollins, of Boone, was also there, and he, too, went to 
Congress from his section, and, like the others, took a high stand 
among the able men and orators in 'that body. As an orator, he has 
not his superior, if his equal, in the State. 

Thomas L. Anderson, of Pike, was there also, and he, too, was 
elected to Congress, and exhibited talents, while he was there, not 
inferior to his colleagues. 

Sterling Price, from Chariton, was also a member, and was the 
speaker, for which position he was particularly adapted : — a man of 
tine and commanding person, and handsome and intelligent face. He, 
like the others, became a member of Congress, but served but a short 
time in that body, as, the war with Mexico occurring during the first 
session of the term for which he was elected, he was appointed by the 
United States a Brigadier-General in the army, went to Mexico, and 
served with great distinction. Some years afterward he was elected 
Governor of this State ; and, on the breaking out of the war between 
the North and the South, cast his fortunes with the latter. He soon 
became a Major-General in the Confederate army, where he acquired 
great distinction for personal courage and military talents of a very 
high order. 

Alexander Doniphan, of Clay, was a member that session, also. His 
services during the Mexican war, as the bold leader of that small band 
of heroes who traversed the republic of Mexico from the northern 
limits to the Gulf, fighting overwhelming odds all the way, have made 
his name immortal. 

There were many other members of this body, who, although not as 
famous as those enumerated, were yet men of good talents and solid 
abilities. No legislative body ever met in this State, and indeed it may 
be said, none ever sat in the United States, in which a larger number of 
distinguished men were brought together. 

In the year 1837, Mr. Bogy formed a partnership for the practice 
of the law with Mr. Logan Hunton, of Kentucky. Mr. Hunton came 
to this State with the reputation not only of a very sound lawyer, but a 
man of ability, having served with distinction in the Kentucky Legis- 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 231 

lature. Tliis partnership continued for several years, and was, while it 
existed, one of the leading firms of St. Louis. Mr. Hunton afterward 
went to New Orleans, where he acquired a still greater reputation 
in his profession, and also realized a handsome fortune. 

In 1839, ^^"- Bogy made a trip to the Indian country, traveling the 
whole distance there and back on horse-back, sleeping out-doors for 
some seven months, with his saddle-blanket for his bed. During this 
trip he passed through the countries of the Osages, Quapaws, Senecas, 
Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles, and as far 
west as the Comanches, near the line of Mexico. 

In the year 1849, ^^ decided to engage in politics : having acquired 
a handsome fortune by his profession, he no longer felt the necessity 
of devoting himself to its practice. And believing that a better field 
was presented in his native county than in St. Louis, he moved to that 
count}' that year, and bought a handsome farm near the town for his 
future home. The St. Louis Congressional district at that time extended 
south to the Arkansas line, therefore, in moving to the county of Ste. 
Genevieve, he did not get out of the district. 

The Democratic party was then already divided between the slavery 
and anti-slavery elements. The Wilmot proviso was the question 
on which this division had taken place. Colonel Benton was then 
one of the Senators from this State, David R. Atchison being the other. 
Benton had voted for this pror/so, as it was called. A portion of the 
democracy of Missouri was decidedly opposed to his vote on this ques- 
tion, and did not hesitate to manifest its opposition. The Legislature 
which sat following this vote, passed the famous resolutions known as 
the Jackson resolutions, disapproving of his vote. Benton therefore 
appealed from the Legislature to the people, and soon after traversed 
the State to address them, vindicating his vote, and in the most violent 
manner arraigning the course of his opponents. The Benton and Anti- 
Benton parties grew out of this controversy, and the Democratic parts- 
was in consequence split in two hostile fragments. Mr. Bogy sided 
with the Anti-Benton party. He became a candidate for the Legisla- 
ture in Ste. Genevieve County, and went through a most exciting 
canvass. The opposition he encountered was most virulent, and per- 
sonally very bitter. There were many reasons why this was so. The 
combined forces of the Whig and Benton parties were too strong for 
him, and the consequence was that he was defeated by an old friend of 
his youth, of the name of Sifroid E. Roussin, who was a Whig. The 
election of a United States Senator was to take place at this session of 



232 BIOGRAPIIICAIv SKETCHES. 

the Legislature, and he was very anxious to be a member of this body, 
to take part in that important contest. His defeat, therefore, was 
looked upon by him as one of the most serious events of his political 
life. Colonel Benton was of course a candidate for re-election. Some 
of the leading Democrats continued to support him, but the younger 
members of the party were generally opposed to him. He was not 
re-elected. Thus, after thirty years of continuous service as the 
Senator from this State, dating back to the time when the Missouri 
controversy was at its height, he was compelled to return to private 
life. He and David Barton were elected in 1820, as the first Senators 
from this State, both being Southern men by birth, and both pro- 
slavery. It may therefore be said that this trul}' remarkable man was 
both made and unmade, politically, by the slavery question. 

At the next election for members of the lower house of Congress, 
Colonel Benton announced himself a candidate. The Democratic party 
met in convention in the city of Cape Girardeau, and was presided over 
by one of the leading Democrats of Southeast Missouri of the name of 
Johnson C. Clardy. It, no doubt, honestl}^ represented the true senti- 
ment of the party. It nominated Lewis V. Bogy, of Ste. Genevieve, 
as its candidate in opposition to Colonel Benton. The Whig party 
put in nomination Samuel Caruthers, of Madison county. The con- 
test was very animated ; every county in the district was visited. In 
the lower counties Bogy carried the majority, but in the upper counties 
and St. Louis, Benton carried the da}'. The consequence was that 
Benton was elected, although by a small majority. The fact that Bog}- 
was selected by his party as the opponent of Benton, shows in what 
esteem he was held by them. The ability he displayed during this 
contest justified the wisdom of their choice, and, no doubt, the reputa- 
tion he then acquired largely contributed to his election as United States 
Senator, twenty years after, as his most steadfast and truest supporters 
were the members from Southeast Missouri, the old district where he 
met Benton and discussed with him the great questions agitating the 
public mind. 

Two years after this, he was again a candidate for the Legislature in 
the county of Ste. Genevieve. He was opposed, as before, by the 
combined parties of Whigs and anti-Benton men. After a most ani- 
mated and bitter contest, he was elected, and took his seat as a member 
of the Legislature, which met the following fall. The elements com- 
posing this Legislature were singularly mixed. The Democratic part\- 
was divided between Benton and anti-Benton, and the Whig partv 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 233 

between the Old Line Whig and those having Know-Nothing procHvi- 
ties and affinities, and a fifth party of Free-soilers. After many efforts 
to elect a Senator, the contest being between Benton and Atchison ot 
the Democratic party, and Doniphan of the Whig, the subject was 
laid over, and the consequence was, there was no election that session, 
and for a time Missouri was unrepresented in the federal council. 

There was a large number of distinguished men who were members 
at this session of the Legislature — some of them were already famous, 
others became so afterward. The following are the names of those 
who are remembered at this day: F. P. Blair and B. Gratz Brown, 
Freesoilers, from St. Louis, formerly Democrats ; Henry T. Blow, 
Charles S. Rannells, Samuel M. Breckenridge, also from St. Louis, and 
members of the House — all Whigs, the former, however, exhibiting 
very marked Free-soil tendencies ; C. C. Zeigler, in the Senate from 
the Ste. Genevieve district, an Old Line Whig ; Solomon G. Kitchen, a 
Whig, from Stoddard county, in the Senate ; from Clay county, the 
distinguished Alexander Doniphan, Old Line Whig ; James S. RolHns, 
from Boone, a Whig : Charles H. Hardin, from Callaway, also a Whig, 
at this time the Governor of the State: John W. Reid, from Jackson, 
one of the most gallant captains in the Doniphan campaign through 
Mexico, a Democrat ; James H. Britton, a Democrat from Lincoln, and 
now the mayor of St. Louis ; WilHam Newland, from Ralls, a Whig. 
He was elected Speaker of the House, and made a most excellent pre- 
siding officer, prompt, fair in his ruHngs, and maintaining good order, 
and all with personal dignity. Sterling Price was the Governor of the 
State. Most of the Whigs who were members of the General Assembly 
were either members of the new organization then spreading with great 
rapidity throughout the country, and designated as Know-Nothings, or 
had very decided tendencies toward it. There certainly was a very 
cordial understanding between them. Without egotism, it may be 
said that no State could boast of a larger number of distinguished men 
serving at one time in its councils. It can well be imagined, with such 
characters in the body, the session was both very interesting and, now 
and then, necessarily exciting. Although a large amount of business 
was done, an adjourned session was nevertheless found to be necessary. 
At this adjourned session, the subject of State aid to facilitate and 
encourage the building of railroads in the State, was the absorbing 
question. It was much discussed and perfected, and also enlarged. 

In 1848 Mr. Bogy, with others, purchased the famous Iron Mountain, 
known as the Pilot Knob, in the southeastern section of the State. To 



234 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



this enterprise he devoted for ten 3'ears a large portion of his time, and 
invested in it a very large part of his private fortune. Owing to man}- 
obstacles which presented themselves, this enterprise was not a. success, 
but it would be of no interest to the public to detail them here. It 
was, as it turned out, a most unfortunate undertaking, for after ten 
years of great labor, and the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of 
dollars, he was compelled to relinquish the enterprise, and retire with 
the loss of his entire private fortune, and a large debt to be paid ; and 
that required years of labor afterward to liquidate. He has the gratifi- 
cation, however, to have been able to pay this debt, and also to ha^•e 
again amassed a reasonable independence for himself and family-. 

On his retirement from the Pilot Knob enterprise, he again resumed 
the practice of law, with the intention of continuing to make it his 
exclusive pursuit. He continued to practice law until the war, and for 
a short time after its beginning. Being, however, unable to subscribe 
to the oath which was required by the Radical element, then in power 
in this State, he was compelled to relinquish the practice. 

He then remained in private life till 1863, when the Democrac}' of 
the city of St. Louis called on him to be a candidate for Congress. 
The opposing candidates were F. P. Blair and Samuel Knox — both 
Republicans, but the latter a little more radical than the former. It was 
well known that no Democrat could possibly be elected ; indeed, it was 
at the peril of hfe for a Democrat to speak to the people — the feeling- 
prevailing at that day did not permit an}' one to speak in opposition to 
the administration. The test of loyalty was, adhesion to it right or 
wrong. Mr. Bogy, however, made the canvass, encountering through- 
out the most bitter and violent abuse from the two opposing candidates 
and their friends. It is well to say that the object of running a Demo- 
cratic candidate at this time was with the view of explaining the position 
of the party, and so as to prevent, if possible, hereafter, the various 
persecutions with which it had been so terribly visited. This object 
was accomplished ; and from that time a more tolerant feeling was 
exhibited toward the members of the party. He was of course defeated. 

From that time he continued in private life until he was called 
to the head of the Indian Bureau by President Johnson in 1867, as 
Commissioner of Indian aflairs. In this office he displayed very great 
administrative abilities. At the time he took charge of this most 
important branch of the public service, the Indians were in a state of 
quasi-war throughout their whole country ; this being caused by the 
frauds and rascalities of the Indian agents. These Mr. Bogy in many 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 235 

cases removed, and at the time he left the office peace reigned over all 
the extended country occupied by the Indians. In the short time he 
remained in this service he acquired a national reputation. 

Mr. Bogy then returned again to private life, until he announced 
himself a candidate for the United States Senate, a short time prior to 
the meeting of the Legislature, in January 1873, upon which devolved 
the election of United States Senator in place of Hon. F. P. Blair, 
whose term of office would expire in March following. This Legisla- 
ture was largely Democratic in both houses, which had the effect of 
bringing forward as candidates for the position, all the prominent men 
of the party in the State. It is with pride that we refer to so long a 
Hst of distinguished characters, candidates for the office, any one of 
whom would have represented Missouri in the National Assembly with 
honor to the State and to himself. General Blair was a candidate 
for re-election, and, with the following gentlemen, made up the list of 
candidates : Judge Napton, Colonel Vest, Lieutenant-Governor Rey- 
nolds, Governor Woodson, Judge Norton, Governor Phelps, Colonel 
Thos. L. Anderson, Colonel Broadhead and Mr. Bogy. The contest 
in the caucus was animated, but was contined principally to Blair, 
Phelps and Bogy, and finally on the last ballot was between Bogy and 
Blair, the former receiving sixt3--four votes to the latter' s tifty-seven. 
On the next day, January- 15, the two houses voted separately, as 
required by the law of the United States, with the following result: In 
the Senate — Bogy, 15; J. B. Henderson (Radical), 10; majority for 
Bogy, 5. In the House — Bogy, 86; J. B. Henderson, 32 : majority for 
Bogy, 54. Thus was Mr. Bogy elected by the large majority of 59 
votes. 

He conducted his canvass at Jefferson City for two weeks prior to the 
election, with remarkable skill and ability. Mr. Bogy had been a very 
active and prominent party man for many years before, and as closely 
identified with his party as any man in the State, but during the entire 
war he was quiet, taking no part in politics, although his sentiments 
during that eventful period are well known. 

He took his seat as Senator from Missouri on the 3d of March 1873. 
at a called session of the Senate. The Forty-third Congress, which 
met on the first Monday of December 1873, was one of the most 
important ever held in this country. Many very important questions 
were presented. The subjects of finance, national banks, tariff, inter- 
nal revenue, the opening up of water routes from the interior of the 
continent to the ocean, the levees of the Mississippi River, and the 



236 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

opening of its mouth, all came up, and were duly considered. On all 
these broad subjects, Mr. Bogy showed a knowledge which even sur- 
prised his most intimate friends, speaking always with great clearness 
and marked ability. 

He and his colleague, General Schurz, disagreed upon the financial 
question, the General being in favor of obtaining the resumption of 
specie payment by way of contracting the amount of outstanding 
paper money ; while Mr. Bogy was equally anxious to obtain the same 
end, although not by contraction, but by appreciating the paper circula- 
tion so as to make it equal to gold. 

Mr. Bogy is justly entitled to the credit of being the first Senator who 
advocated the taking of legal tender notes in payment of duties on 
imports, and we are informed that it is his intention, during the 
appi"oaching session of Congress, to bring this matter still more 
prominently before the Senate. He believes this would settle our 
financial troubles, as it would create a demand for the legal tenders, 
and in the same proportion do away with a demand for gold, thus 
bringing them to a level ; and this being efiected, the gold now in the 
country, amounting to from $160,000,000 to $170,000,000, would at 
once go into circulation. This would bring about a large increase in 
the medium of circulation, now so much needed by the whole country. 

Mr. Bogy's speech made during the second session of the Forty-third 
Congress, on this subject, is truly an able argument. On the financial 
question, Mr. Bogy has proven himself to be more in accord with the 
sentiments of the people of the State than his colleague, and, it must 
be admitted, exhibits great familiarity with this most difficult su^ect. 

It may be said that Mr. Bogy has more than fulfilled the anticipations 
of his friends. He has shown greater familiarity with all public ques- 
tions than was expected of him, thus proving that during the long 
years of his quiet life during the war, he was devoting his time to read- 
ing and study. He is looked upon among his colleagues as the repre- 
sentative of Western interests. 

He has been the unflinching advocate of all matters looking to the 
improvement of the Western waters, such as the opening up of the con- 
tinent from the interior to the ocean by water routes, and the improve- 
ment of the mouth of the Mississippi by the jetty system. It was 
Mr. Bogy who got the bill through, compelling the Union Pacific 
Railroad to prorate with the Kansas Pacific, thus giving to St. Louis 
and Missouri a direct line of communication, by the way of Denver 
and Cheyenne, with California and the Pacific Slope. 



LOUIS V. BOGY. 237 

Mr. Bogy is a child of Missouri ; was born and reared in the midst 
of her institutions. He has, through a long course of successful life, 
shown himself eminently worthy, and the State that has the honor of 
his birth may still look for great results from his talents, patriotism and 
integrity. His step is just as elastic as it was twenty years ago ; and so 
remarkably hale and healthy is his appearance that no one would sup- 
pose him verging on three-score years. In all his relations in life, 
Mr. Bogy is peculiarly happy. In early life he married a daughter of 
General Bernard Pratte, who has been his faithful companion ever 
since. He is one of the men of St. Louis whose life has not been 
Hved in vain, and a citizen of whom Missouri is justly proud. He has 
but three children, one son and two daughters — all married. 

Mr. Bogy being emphatically the most distinguished descendant of 
the early French settlers, it would not be inappropriate, in a sketch of 
his life, to say a few words concerning these people, who first came 
to this interior portion of the new world. Much has been written and 
said in relation to the early settlers of the New England States, and also 
of Maryland and Virginia, and the brave men who, led by Daniel Boone, 
first met the savages on the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky ; yet, 
long prior to the day when Boone crossed the Blue Ridge of the 
Cumberland Mountains, long before Washington's early visit to 
the then distant shores of the Ohio, the Canadian French were living 
in happy communities in the towns of Cahokia, St. Phillip, Prairie Du 
Rocher, Fort Chartres and Kaskaskia. These French Canadians were 
more truly pioneers in the wilderness than any other people ; and with 
them followed civilization, religion, and the polite manners and social 
habits of the French nation. Their system of emigration was peculiar 
and most excellent. They moved together in families, taking with 
them their priest. They settled in towns ; and one of the first buildings 
erected, after their own log houses were ready, was the church of the 
parish, and close by it the parochial residence for the priest. This 
priest was the guardian of the orphans and protector of widows, and 
vi^s, in the main, the educator of the people in the duties of religion. 
He it was who taught the boys and girls the catechism, baptized all the 
infants, and performed the sacrament of matrimony. He was, in truth, 
the father of the whole community, and with them personally from the 
cradle to the grave. Besides this, he participated with them in all their 
innocent enjoyments. One instrument of music, and only one, was 
known, and that was the fiddle. They knew not how to read music, 
but played by the ear, and sweeter music was never heard in the 
wilderness of the new world. 



238 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 

This S3-stem of emigration was attended with marked good results. 
Although this people had no, or but little, education, the}^ all had tine, 
and indeed, graceful manners, and the ladies had a grace peculiar to 
themselves. Happier communities existed nowhere in the world. It 
was a renewal of the Arcadian age. From these ditierent communities 
the trappers and hunters and Indian traders annuall}' proceeded. And 
the bold coureur des bois, now famous in history, was the veteran of 
these early settlements. These people were remarkable for honesty, 
piety and sobriety. Vice was unknown among the women. These 
early Canadian French are truly and justly entitled to the honor of 
being the lirst settlers, the true pioneers, of the Valley of the Missis- 
sippi. And as the subject of this sketch is one of the descendants, we 
have thought due to him, as well as to his ancestors, to place on the 
pages of historv in connection with his name, the facts we here note. 
While he has just reason to be proud of such frontiersmen for his ances- 
tors, they, on their part, would be no less so in witnessing one of their 
descendants occupying, with honor to himself and usefulness to his 
country, one of the most elevated and distinguished positions in this 
Government — that of Senator of the United States. 



EDWIN O. STANARD. 



/ I \ HE subject of this sketch is in many respects one of the most 
_L remarkable men of the West, and a rnan whose hfe atfbrds many 
useful lessons to the merchant just starting out in life. 

Edwin O. Stanard was born in Newport, New Hampshire, in the 
year 1832. In 1836, his parents came West and settled upon a farm in 
Iowa, which was then for the most part a wild and uncultivated region, 
where the facilities for educating a growing family were not the best 
that could be desired. Here, in the settler's Western home, young 
Stanard remained until maturity, toiling with his axe and farming imple- 
ments, and assisting in gaining a livelihood for the family. Under such 
circumstances, then, — circumstances which have produced some of 
the best specimens of American manhood, young Stanard arrived at 
maturit3^ 

Some years, however, after the arrival of the famih' in Iowa, public 
schools were established and the means of obtainin<»- an education were 
at hand. The parents were both wise and discreet persons, and the 
current literature of the da}'- and periodicals, found their way into their 
household. Consequently 3"oung Stanard grew up to manhood with a 
fair knowledge of men and the world in general. 

Upon arriving at his majority, he started out to cut his own road to 
fortune. He spent several years — teaching during the winter in Illinois, 
and passing the summers in St. Louis studying and perfecting his edu- 
cation. He always had a predilection for merchandising, and with this 
idea uppermost in his mind, he made many efforts to obtain employment 
in some of the wholesale houses on Main street. But his efforts proved 
of no avail. None of the merchants seemed to want his services, or 
they all failed to discern in him the solid material for the business man 
of which he was- made, and which he afterward proved himself to be. 

At last, and after many efforts, in the winter of 1S56 Mr. Stanard 
obtained employment in a shipping and commission house in Alton, 
Illinois, where his thorough business habits and uniform gentlemanl}^ 
bearing, made for him many firm friends, who felt an interest in the 



240 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 



future of the young man. His employer dying before the close of the 
year, he was again out of employment. He had not forgotten his early 
ambition to become a St. Louis merchant, and thitherward he turned 
his footsteps. 

About this time he made the acquaintance of Mr. C. J. Gilbert. 
Between them a strong friendship sprang up, and with very small 
capital, but with any amount of energy and determination to succeed, 
they opened a commission house in this city, and subsequently estab- 
lished the widely known firm of Stanard, Gilbert & Co. Considering 
the small amount of capital they had at their disposal, and not being 
blessed with any large number of friendly advisors, or indorsers, the 
new firm met with remarkable success, and was soon looked upon as 
one of the institutions of the city. Soon after, this firm opened a 
similar house in Chicago, Mr. Gilbert going there for that purpose, 
which also proved a successful enterprise. He also established the 
house of Stanard & Slayback, in New Orleans, and in other instances 
took occasion to extend his commercial relations. 

In 1866 Mr. Stanard purchased the Eagle Steam Mills in St. Louis, 
and directed himself to the manufacture of flour. In this field of 
enterprise he has also succeeded, and besides being the possessor of a 
handsome competency, he enjoys in a marked degree the esteem and 
confidence of his fellow-citizens. 

His fellow-merchants have tried him in many ways, and in nothing 
has he been found wanting, and at no time did he ever cause them to 
regret the confidence they placed in him. He has been president of 
the Chamber of Commerce, and is director in the Missouri Pacific 
Railway. He is president of the Citizens' Insurance Company, director 
in the Life Association of America, a large owner and director in the 
St. Louis Elevator Company, and also in the Mississippi Valley Trans- 
portation Company. 

In 1868 he was the nominee of the Republican party for Lieutenant- 
Governor, and although he had taken no active part in politics before 
that period, and was wholly inexperienced in public affairs, such was 
the strength of his personal popularity and character for sterling 
integrity, that he was elected by a handsome majority. 

As the presiding officer of the Senate, and in all matters pertaining 
to the duties of Lieutenant-Governor, he acted well his part, even his 
most bitter political enemies never denying his strict impartiality. His 
gentlemanly deportment, dignified bearing, thorough reliability and 
generous consideration for all classes of citizens, made him hosts of 



KDWIN O. STANARD. 24I 

warm and personal friends. He vacated the office of Lieutenant-Go\- 
ernor with a reputation unstained by a single act of partiality, and with 
the best wishes of men of both political parties. 

During the late war he gave largely of his means to sustain Sanitary 
and Christian Commissions, and to all other enterprises inaugurated to 
ameliorate the condition of suffering humanity, and was a firm and con- 
sistent supporter of the Government. 

In 1870 Mr. Stanard acquiesced in the Liberal movement in Missouri » 
and took an active part in the canvass of that year. This movement he 
considered, however, a pureh' local or State movement, and, with the 
election of B. Gratz Brown to the gubernatorial chair, his connection 
with the part}^ ended, and in all matters relating to National politics he 
has been a staunch Republican. 

At the urgent solicitation of his friends he permitted his name to be 
used for the office of Mayor of St. Louis, and after one of the hottest 
and most closely contested elections ever held in the city, he was 
defeated. 

In 1872 he was elected to Congress, on the Republican ticket, from 
the First District, and was regarded as one of the most efficient and 
useful representatives ever sent from St. Louis. He devoted his 
energies mostly to business interests of the West, but was ver\' 
independent in his votes on political topics, as was shown- by his votes 
and speeches against some measures of his part}^ In 1874 ^^ ^'^^ 
renominated by his party, but, owing to factional differences, was 
defeated. 

In every position he has ever held, he has acquitted himself with 
honor, and never yet vacated a position but with the regrets of the 
best class of his fellow-citizens. 

Mr. Stanard is an earnest man, of wonderful energ}', of more than 
average abilities, and a man who is thoroughl}- conversant with the 
business wants of St. Louis and the State of Missouri. He has been 
intimately connected with almost every public enterprise which has 
originated in St. Louis for the last fifteen years, sustaining them by his 
counsels, energies, and contributions. He may justly be considered 
one of the progressive spirits of the West, with a mind capable of 
grasping the wants and necessities of Western trade and commerce. 
He is honored and appreciated in every circle in St. Louis — religious, 
business, political and social — and is one of the many merchants of 
whom this vast metropolis is justly proud. 

16 



ABRAM NAVE. 



'S success is by no means common to commercial life, it must, 
when attained, argue superior sagacity and capability in those 
who achieve it. Especially is this true of the merchants of the 
West. Here, commercial relations have often been constructed and 
reconstructed within the lifetime of single individuals. The mer- 
chants of old communities grow up surrounded by plans and prin- 
ciples which have been tested and approved, and which they have 
only to follow. In our own section, however, there has existed a 
necessity for almost continuous change, in order that systems should be 
adapted to ever-changing requirements. The merchants of the West 
put forth their barks upon an almost unknown sea, and he must be 
regarded as an able navigator who manages to always meet with 
favoring winds. 

Areas of production and consumption have been changed ; transporta- 
tion has been revolutionized, and the old customs of trade have been 
entirely replaced. Through all this a few men of comprehensive grasp 
of mind helped to direct the course of the resistless current, and won 
honor and fortune by their thorough identification with the progress 
that was going on around them. 

Abram Nave is one of those who has helped, in an eminent degree, 
to build up and strengthen that noble system of commerce to which we 
are so much indebted. Sanguine in temperament, without being reck- 
less, he has pushed his successes with audacity, and has never shrank 
from great enterprises because they involved an unusual amount of 
labor. One most admirable and valuable quality has made it possible 
for him to conduct widely extended operations with unvarying good 
fortune : — that is his correct estimate of men and rare discernment in 
the selection of associates. This quality has enabled him to duplicate 
his powers, and to bring the spirit of his policy to bear in various 
points having reciprocal interests. 

He was born in Cocke county. East Tennessee, from whence his 
father emigrated to Saline county, Missouri, while he was yet young. 



244 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

His father, Henry Nave, was of German descent: his mother, 
Elizabeth Brooks, of Scottish blood. Settling upon a farm with his 
family, Henry Nave, as his sons grew vip, had their assistance in the 
farm work, and there Abram Nave acquired a robust constitution and 
contidence in his own powers. 

A keen observer and an apt scholar, he received sufficient education 
at the country schools for business life, and when nineteen years of age 
took a drove of mules to Louisiana on his own account. Upon his 
return from this trip, which consumed some months, he opened a 
country store at Savannah, Andrew county, Missouri, with a capital of 
about a thousand dollars. This was the commencement of a profitable 
business enterprise, and five years later, in 1846, he established a branch 
house in Oregon, Holt county, Missouri, under the management of 
James McCord, and another at Hawle3'ville, Iowa. 

He was married in 1842 to Miss Lucie McCord, by whom he had 
five children, four sons and one daughter, all now living. 

In 1852, during the great emigration to California, he and James 
McCord commenced buying herds of cattle to send across the plains to 
that new Eldorado, and continued their stock business near Sacra- 
mento City, California, till 1857. During this period, however, he still 
continued his mercantile houses at Savanah and Oregon, Missouri, and 
Hawleyville, Iowa. In 1857 he and James McCord established a 
wholesale grocery house at St. Joseph, Missouri, under the style of 
Nave, M'Cord & Co. This step was considered an experiment at that 
time, but the house has gradually grown, and is now perhaps the 
largest and best known grocery firm in the West. This well known 
house has established several branch houses, three of which still exist. 
The first was opened at Omaha, Nebraska, in 1861, and the second at 
Council Blufts, Iowa, the following year. In 1862 the firm of C. D. 
Smith & Co., (in which he is a partner) was formed at St. Joseph, 
Missouri, and has become well and favorably known as one of the best 
and most substantial in the West. In 1868, after the completion of the 
Union Pacific Railroad, it was decided to cease the Omaha and Council 
Bluffs houses, although both had done a large and profitable business. 
But the same year another house was started at Kansas City, Missouri, 
under the firm name of McCord, Nave & Co. This establishment is 
managed by James M. Nave, son of Abram Nave, and its annual sales 
are, with the exception of Nave, McCord & Co.'s, the largest in the 
State outside of St. Louis. In 1872 he, with James McCord, J. W. 
Goddard, and L. G. Peck, opened the St. Louis house, of which he is 



ABRAM NAVE 



245 



now the head. The time was auspicious, and opening as the}' did. 
with ample means, the highest commercial credit and extensive connec- 
tions, it is not strange that its success has been marked, even in the face 
of an extraordinary season of depression in general trade. Mr. Nave's 
interests extend to the house in Kansas City and the two in St. 
Joseph, with which he is still closely identified, and-which receive his 
personal supervision. In the light of his experience and judgment, 
which have carried him and his associates safely through so man>- 
trying times, they have little to fear from the easy and beaten path that 
lies before them. It is to his industry and energy that they are indebted 
for the safetv and success that now attend their operations. 

He is a master spirit, directing the movements of a chain of grocerA' 
houses that, in their combined aggregate, probably exceed any com- 
petitor in the United States. Large and active physically and mentally, 
comprehensive in his ideas, too self-reliant to be annoved by responsi- 
bilities, too confident in his views to feel any timidit}', he carries along a 
weight of business under which man}^ men would sink. A jovial, gen- 
erous disposition that finds much in humanity to commend, assists him 
also in obtaining a clear insight into the main-springs of human action, 
and to organize and carry forward schemes which require combinations 
of talent and capital, and which, in less able hands, might wither to 
decay. In the development of that system of commerce which has 
been so potent for good in the Mississippi Valley, he has been a keen 
observer and an active worker, and may be said to be one of the 
builders of a structure that is none the less real because it is not 
measured by line or compass. In the exchanges of trade, his name 
has been honorably spoken among men from ocean to ocean, and 
St. Louis honors him as a representative Western merchant. 



DANIEL READ, LL.D. 



/ I (he histoiy of Dr. Read, of his long and prominent career as a 
J_ university officer, now extending as such over a period of more 
than tifty years in Western State Universities, renders his life as 
an educator singularly noticeable. He was born June 22, 1805, at 
Marietta, Ohio. Upon the removal of his father to Cincinnati, before 
the tenth year of his age, he was placed in the old Cincinnati Academy, 
and was there the schoolmate of the Lytles, the St. Clairs, the Vances 
and others who became distinguished men. Subsequently he studied 
at the Xenia x\cademy, then considered one of the best classical schools 
in the Northwest, and early in 1819 entered the academy of the Ohio 
Universitv at Athens, preparatory to entering the freshman class the next 
year. Here it was his good fortune to enjoy the instructions of Joseph 
Dana, the author of the "Liber Primus," the "Latin Tutor," and other 
elementarv books of a Latin course, then in universal use. The Ohio 
University, which was, in its preparator}- department, opened in 1809^ 
became distinguished for its product of eminent men, among whom 
was the late Thomas Ewing, the well known law3'er and statesman, 
who was its lirst graduate (in 1815), and indeed the first to receive 
the degree of A. B. northwest of the Ohio River. The inspiring 
influence of this remarkable man, wonderful for his industrv and talents 
as a student, produced its effects upon many generations of students. 
In college he was the associate of Geo. W. Summers, of Virginia, of 
Samuel Biggers, afterward Governor of Indiana, David Lindley, the 
celebrated African Missionar}^, J. N. Reynolds, who was famous for 
getting up the South Pole expeditions, and other celebrities. No one 
as a student could have been more ambitious, and in English and Latin 
composition he bore off man}' prizes. ?Ie graduated in 1824, and, 
though the youngest of his class, was awarded the first honors. 

He at once entered upon the stud}' of the law under James Cooley, 
Esq., who being soon afterward appointed Charge d' Affaires to Peru, 
(which was then the title of that grade of ministers) invited his young- 
pupil to act as his secretary. This ofier he declined, thus probably 



248 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

saving his life, as both Mr. Cooley and his secretary died of yello\v 
fever soon after reaching Lima. His plans were, however, broken in 
upon, w^iich induced him to accept the place of preceptor of the 
academy of the Ohio University (which through the influence of Prof. 
Dana was offered him ) ; and under this title he became a member of 
the faculty. The academy was strictly a school of preparation for the 
regular college course, and embraced classes in Virgil, Cicero, Ovid, 
etc., and in the Greek, Delectus and Minora. His first step, although 
he had manv pupils older than himself (at least one-half of them) was 
to require them to study under his own inspection. The main object 
of this was to make the drill work more thorough, and though at first 
there was some dissatisfaction, the students soon became convinced 
that by the presence and aid of their preceptor their progress was made 
not onlv more rapid, but their knowledge more accurate. His require- 
ment of attendance was seven hours — one hour before breakfast, and 
three in the forenoon and three in the afternoon. B}' holding up before 
his pupils examples of high efibrt, and by his own constant personal 
presence and assistance, he inspired them with the utmost enthusiasm 
in their studies. The motto of the school-room which he had con- 
spicuouslv posted was "Labor ipse \ohiptas.''' It need not be said that 
this vigor of administration at once gave him a ver}- high reputation. 

Not vet ha^'ing gi\'en up the idea of the law as his profession, amidst 
all these labors, by allowing himself the least possible time for sleep, 
he completed his law studies, and was admitted to the Bar of the Su- 
preme Court, after the rigorous examination then required in Ohio. 
Dr. Read has often been heard to say that the most valuable intellectual 
discipline which he ever gave himself was the mastery of Blackstone, 
in a manner so thorough that he was able to repeat the analysis of the 
whole work, of each of the volumes separatel}', of every chapter, and 
e\'erv title, and to give the definition also of every legal term, and every 
maxim and its application. 

Becoming more and more interested as a college professor, he relin- 
quished the idea of entering upon the practice of the law. He devoted 
himself with increased energy and enthusiasm to the building up of the 
Universitv, not only as a teacher, but as a disciplinarian and organizer. 
No other officer was so much looked to in the affairs of the University. 
Indeed, upon some vacancies occurring, and others being declared in 
the faculty, the whole charge of the institution was, for a time, given 
over to him, with one other officer, who, on account of his age, was 
able to take little share of the burden. 



D A N I E L R E A IJ , 1. 1. . D . 2 49 

Upon a reorganization of the faculty, the presidency was otf'ered 
him, but he earnestly and cordially urged the election of Wm. H. 
McGutiey, which was made, himself being chosen vice-president. 

With the organization then made, perhaps no institution, East or 
West, had a more able or energetic faculty. The institution under such 
men greatly prospered. Professor Read had become the Professor of 
Political Econom}- and Constitutional and Public Law, and, in the dis- 
cussions which divided the parties of the day ( i836-'42) sided with 
the Democratic party in their views of tariff and banking, but held 
himself entirely aloof from party organization. He used his pen, how- 
ever, freely and vigorous!}' in the expression of his views. 

The funds of the University proved entirely insufficient to carry on 
the institution under its then existing organization. Professor Read 
believed that the lands of the Universit}-, held under a perpetual lease, 
were, according to law, subject to re-valuation, and proposed that 
measure as aftbrding relief, and as a positive duty on the part of the 
tiTistees of the Universitv. The Supreme Court decided in favor of 
the right of re-valuation. The end of the matter was that the Legisla- 
ture intervened, the re-valuation failed, Dr. McGutley resigned, and 
soon after Professor Read and other professors also resigned. The 
sacrifice on the part of Professor Read w^as a very great one, as he had 
become the owner of one of the most comfortable homes in the State, 
but he valued his professional position above any other consideration. 

In 1840, he served as a visitor to the United States Militar}' Academy- 
at West Point, and, as secretary of the Board, drafted the report of 
that year, which was favorabl}- reviewed in the North American. 

Preceding his resignation in the Ohio University, he was elected Pro- 
fessor of Ancient Languages in the Indiana State Universit}^ (in 1843). 
Here, as he had been in Ohio, he w^as not onl}- the able and earnest 
university professor, but was prominent in all educational movements : 
not onl}' this : his influence in matters of State improvement was that of 
a leading citizen. 

In 1850, he was elected a member of the State Constitutional Con- 
vention. This was a body composed of the very ablest men of the 
State, and the prominent part which was assigned him sufficienth 
showed the estimate in which he was held. 

In the year 1856, he was elected to the chair of Mental and Moral 
Philosoph}' in the Universitv of Wisconsin, at Madison, which, on 
account of the great beautv of the place, and the inducements held out 
by a rapidly growing citv, he accepted. Here, in this new field, as a 



250 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

college officer, as a citizen, as active in all matters pertaining to educa- 
tional advancement, as a writer on subjects of general interest, he soon 
became known throughout the State. In all the concerns of the Uni- 
versit}', and in every way promoting its advancement, and especially in 
the measures relating to the concentrating of funds to make a single 
strong State institution, he was a leader. 

In 1866, after the death of Mr. Lathrop, Dr. Read was unanimously 
elected president of the University of Missouri, which was, from debt, 
from want of endowment, from dilapidation of buildings, from party 
prejudice, and general neglect, in a deplorable condition. He at once 
proposed a plan to the board of curators for the re-creation of the insti- 
tution with the proper departments of a university, taking the require- 
ments of the Constitution of the State as the basis 6i the organization : 
not, however, definitely accepting the presidency until April 1867, after 
the Legislature had acknowledged the Universit}- as the State Univer- 
sity under the Constitution, and largely increased its endowment, which 
he had made a condition of acceptance. The progress of the institution 
since that time is well known. It has in its endowment, in its depart- 
ments of instruction, in the number of its professors and students, in its 
libraries and equipments, become one of the leading institutions of the 
West. In this great work, so speedily accomplished, no person, unless 
blinded by utter ignorance and prejudice, denies that Dr. Read has been 
the main spring of action. He has, as forcibly expressed by the Hon. 
James S. Rollins, the very founder of the University, "been the arsenal 
from which all the material of action has been furnished, and so ample 
has been the supply we had need to go nowhere else." 

In such a work, opposition was to be expected. It did not come at 
tirst, for there was nothing to oppose, but as the institution grew in 
means and power, it became an object desirable to be controlled on 
many accounts. His opponents have been the reactionary, the ignorant 
and the prejudiced : those who know nothing of the educational move- 
ment of the da3s and whose faces and steps are turned backwards. 
Those who have labored most and done most lor the University ascribe 
most to Dr. Read. 

In the review of such a life, it strikes us as almost a phenomenon that 
a man of acknowedged ability, great force of character, indefatigable 
industry and enterprising spirit, should for so long a time here in the 
West have adhered to one line of life — and that one likely to generate 
habits of inaction, if not indolence ; and this with numerous temptations 
to other pursuits. In it he has manifested all the zeal, enthusiasm. 



DANIEL READ , LL . D . 25 I 

untiring labor and intensit}' of purpose, which leads to success in law, 
in politics, or business enterprise. He has never spared either labor or 
money in his work ; he has employed almost every vacation of his 
professional life in visiting colleges and universities, libraries and 
polytechnic institutions : and in mingling and consulting with the leading 
American educators, in educational associations, especially the National,^ 
in which he has been largely a participant. His punctuality in the 
routine of college duty has been well nigh perfect, and his preparations 
for the class-room never omitted or remitted. 

His pupils are now scattered abroad in every State, and almost every 
country. A distinguished gentleman wishing, for a reason, to know the 
estimate in which Dr. Read was held by them, wrote to a considerable 
number of the most distinguished of them in public life. The response 
was, without exception, of the same general tenor. They acknowledge 
him as the teacher, of all others, who had taught them how to study 
and how to learn, how to classify their knowledge and how to use it» 
and as having inspired them with high and ennobling ambitions. 

Dr. Read is now the oldest American college officer in continuous- 
commission in the United States, having received his first appointment 
April 8, 1825, and has been in commission as such to this time without 
any intermission, and except when absent on public dut}^ connected with 
the interests of education, has been engaged in the daily routine of lec- 
ture, recitation or class examination. Dr. Read has not yet abated one 
jot or tittle of his former vigor and intensity of purpose ; his health 
remains well nigh perfect ; in study, in writing, in teaching and lectur- 
ing, he is as intent and earnest as ever, and spends more hours of labor 
than most men of any age. 

Dr. Read was married, when barely twenty-one years of age, to 
x\lice Brice, daughter of Thomas Brice, a merchant of great enterprise 
in that part of Ohio, and found in her truly a "help-meet." To her pru- 
dence, good management, taste, and encouraging influence, he attributes 
largely whatever of professional success he has been able to achieve. 
Her death occurred in May 1874. He had a large family, tour of whom 
survive (daughters). His oldest son. General Theodore Read, fell in 
the last contest before the Appomattox bridge, mention of whose heroic 
conduct and death is made by General Grant in his final report. 



HON. CHARLES P. JOHNSON 



<v AjMONG the many distinguished men in the State, who have been 
ILJL. brought prominently before the public since i860, none stands 
higher, or is more deserving of the reputation he enjoys, than 
Hon. Charles P. Johnson, late Lieutenant-Governor. His career, so 
successful and honorable, affords another illustration of what can be 
accomplished by aspiring American youth, even without influential 
friends and great opportunities. It shows that the path to honorable 
distinction and usefulness is open to all, and that he who pursues it 
steadily and perseveringly, is sure to be successful sooner or later. 
In his case, he has accomplished, at a comparatively early age, what 
most men of maturer years would be proud to have done. 

Charles Philip Johnson was born in Lebanon, St. Clair county, 
Illinois, on January 13, 1836. His ancestors were among the early 
pioneers of that State, and bore an honorable part in its histor}' ; 
and at a later date his maternal uncle, Hon. PhiHp B. Fouke, repre- 
sented the Belleville district in the Thirty-sixth Congress, and was 
re-elected, but resigned to serve his country as a Colonel of Volunteers. 
His 3'outh was spent chiefly at Belleville, where he attended the public 
schools ; but his education was directed and his character moulded 
largely b}^ an excellent mother, whose influence in moulding the char- 
acters of her children was unbounded, and whose presence now, is to 
him and her other children a constant benediction. 

At this time young Johnson evinced a desire to do something useful, 
and accordingly spent much of his leisure in his uncle's printing oflice, 
where he learned to set type and do other things pertaining to "the 
art preservative." He acquired a fair knowledge of the business, and 
in 1853, though still a boy, started a printing office on his own account 
and commenced the publication of a weekly paper in the town of 
Sparta, doing most of the mechanical and editorial work himself. At 
the end of eighteen months his ambition took a new turn. He still 
had a liking for the newspaper business, but he saw the necessitv of 
qualifying himself further for the responsibilities of life. His printing 
office was converted into cash, and he started for McKendree Colle<je. 



254 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



at Lebanon, where, on his arrival, he enrolled himself as a student. 
At this institution his progress was commendable, and though he did 
not take the entire course, such studies as he chose were thoroughly 
mastered and became of practical value to him in after life. After 
leaving McKendree, Mr. Johnson came to St. Louis and commenced 
the study of law^ in the office of Hon. Robert F. Wingate, late Attorney 
General of Missouri. In 1857 he was admitted to the Bar, and was 
not long in securing a fair practice. He made friends easil}' and 
retained them after they were w^on, and it was not long before he was 
regarded as a leader in political and literary clubs. The Free-labor or 
Emancipation party began to be popular in St. Louis in i<^59, and as its 
principles and leaders pleased him, Mr. Johnson gave it his support. 
His friends insisted that he would bring strength to the ticket in the 
spring of that year, and he was therefore placed before the people as 
a candidate for City Attorney. His election by a handsome majority 
gave evidence of his popularity, and his faithful performance of the 
duties of the office afterward, show^ed his fitness for the position. 

At the beginning of the civil war in 1861, Mr. Johnson was one of 
the firmest adherents of the Union cause, and did much to arouse the 
Youncj men of the city to active eflbrts in defense of the country. 
When the Third regiment, Missouri Volunteers, w^as organized for the 
three months' service, he enlisted as a private, but w^as elected Lieu- 
tenant of one of the companies before the regiment was mustered for 
service. He acquitted himself creditably during the short campaign. 

On his return, he materially assisted in the recruiting and organiza- 
tion of the Eighth infantry (Zouaves), and was sent to Washington to 
tender this regiment to the Government. The position of Major was 
offered him, but he declined it on account of his limited experience in 
military affairs. 

During the summer of 1862, a division occurred in the ranks of the 
Union men. General Frank P. Blair, who from the first had been the 
recognized leader of the Emancipationists and War men, saw fit to take 
issue w^ith General Fremont as to the proper way of managing affairs in 
the Western Department. The Germans and a large number of Ameri- 
can Republicans stood by Fremont and condemned the course of Blair. 
The Conservatives and gradual Emancipationists thought a point could 
be made bv encouraging General Blair in his w^arfare on Fremont, and 
accordingly gave him all the aid in their power. In return. General 
Blair aided them in their efforts to crush the Radicals. He had the ear 
and confidence of the President, and succeeded in effectinjj^ Fremont's 



HON. CHARLES P. JOHNSON. 255 

removal ; but when the issue of emancipation or anti-emancipation came 
before the people in November, the most radical sentiment prevailed. 
In this contest, in St. Louis, Mr. Johnson was the acknowledged leader 
of the advanced emancipation sentiment. He was bold, earnest and 
aggressive, taking the position that none but the most vigorous war 
measures could put down the rebellion, and that a permanent peace 
with the South could not be secured as long as slavery existed. On 
this platform he was nominated for Congress b}- the Emancipationists 
of the First district against his old friend and leader. General Blair ; but 
being only twenty-six years of age, he thought it w^ould be better to 
decline in favor of Hon. Samuel Knox, and take the nomination for a 
seat in the lower house of the State Legislature. He did so, and was 
elected by a large majorit}' over the combined forces of Conservatives 
and Democrats. 

When the Legislature met in the winter of i862-'3, the advanced 
Union men were somewhat confused. Men whom the}* had trusted 
as leaders advised a moderate course, especiallv on the subject of 
emancipation. Mr. Johnson met them in caucus, and, with all his 
earnestness, urged a positive declaration of principles on all questions 
pertaining to the war, the calling of a State Convention to secure 
emancipation at the earliest practicable moment, and the election to 
the United States Senate of men of well-known anti-slavery and Union 
sentiments. His views met a ready response from a respectable num- 
ber of members of each house, and a strong party organization was 
effected. 

In the formation of the committees of the House, Mr. Johnson was 
by courtes}' made chairman of the Committee on Emancipation, and 
had much to do with draftinfj the bill under which a convention was 
called, which framed the present Constitution. 

In the senatorial contest, lasting two sessions, and which resulted in 
the election of Hon. B. Gratz Brown and Hon. John B. Henderson, 
Mr. Johnson bore a conspicuous part, and throughout remained the 
steadfast friend of Mr. Brown, aijainst whom the fii^ht bv the Conserv- 
ative forces was made. 

In 1864 he was nominated for Congress in the First district, against 
Hon. John Hogan, a Democrat, and, after a gallant contest, was 
defeated ; not, how^ever, from fault of his own, but because some dis- 
affected Republicans, unwilling to abide the decision of the nominating 
convention, put Mr. Samuel Knox in the tield as a candidate against 
him. 



256 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mr. Johnson was again elected to the Legislature in 186^-6, to till a 
vacanc}', and performed distinguished services to his constituents in 
committees, and on the floor of the House as an advocate of important 
local measures. He did not at this time, however, act in harmony with 
a majority of his Republican associates, having taken issue with them 
on the question of the adoption of the new State Constitution (known 
as the Drake Constitution). Receiving from Governor Fletcher the 
appointment of circuit attorney of St. Louis county, he resigned his seat 
in the House of Representatives, and entered upon the duties of his 
new otiice. His thorough knowledge of criminal law, and his pre- 
vious experience as city attorney, admirablv litted him for this position, 
and so well did he fill it, that at the expiration of the appointed term he 
was elected for four 3xars, by a large majority. 

In 1870, when the Republican party assembled at Jelferson City in a 
delegate convention, to nominate candidates for Governor and other 
State officers, Mr. Johnson deemed it his dutv to unite with the Liberal 
element of his party, and became an earnest supporter of B. Gratz 
Brown. Although he had been an uncompromising opponent of 
slavery, and an earnest advocate of war against rebellion, he entertained 
no personal animosit}- or hatred against slaveholders or rebels. When 
the nation's war ceased, and the cause had been removed, his fisflit 
against both was at an end. It was, therefore, in keeping with his gen- 
erous nature to freely forgive those who had returned from the South, 
and as a proot of his forgiveness, to be willing to extend to them full 
citizenship. With this view, and with these motives, he aided the 
Liberal movement, not only in St. Louis, but throughout the State, by 
his convincing and persuasive eloquence. His friends of the Demo- 
cratic party, however, did not treat him with the same liberal spirit, for 
in the same year they defeated him again in his congressional aspira- 
tions, and elected instead Hon. Erastus Wells. His defeat, this time, 
was, in some measure, due to the straight Republicans, who either 
voted against him or refused to vote at all. But Mr. Johnson's per- 
sonal defeat did not affect his views regarding public policy. He 
believed the time had come for a (general chansre in the tone of national 
politics, and was willing to unite with Democrats or Republicans to 
bring it about. As a delegate to the Cincinnati Convention, and in 
other positions where he was called to act, he labored for this end. 

In the Liberal State Convention of 1872 Mr. Johnson was a dele- 
gate, but had no intention of being a candidate for a State office ; when, 
however, Colonel Gilmore, of Springfield, who had been nominated for 



HON. CHARLES P. JOHNSON. 257 

Lieutenant-Governor, declined, he was substituted on the ticket by the 
Democratic and Liberal Repubhcan State Committees. His election 
was easily accomplished, as many of his old Repubhcan friends voted 
for him, and few, if any. Democrats voted against him. And no one 
ever fihed the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri with better 
satisfaction than he. He made himself a master of parliamentary law, 
and, as presiding officer of the Senate, was prepared to meet every 
question or motion that was presented. His manners were courteous, 
dignified and pleasing, and no Senator ever made complaint against his 
rulings or manner of guiding senatorial proceedings. It is somewhat 
remarkable that no appeal was ever taken from his decisions. On one 
or two occasions, during his term of office, Lieutenant-Governor 
Johnson left the president's chair in the Senate to take part in public 
debate, and frequently during the absence of Governor Woodson, he 
was called upon to exercise executive functions. 

Since his term of office expired, Governor Johnson has devoted him- 
self assiduously to the duties of his profession. He is, without doubt, 
the most successful criminal lawyer in St. Louis, and perhaps in the 
West. His knowledge of criminal law is extensive and \'aried, and his 
manner before a jury is impressive and convincing. In near!}- all 
the important criminal cases that have been tried in St. Louis county 
for the past ten years, he has been engaged as counsel either for the 
jilaintirt' or defendant, and frequentl}' has been employed in important 
cases in other counties of this State and in Illinois. 

He is still in the prime of life, with a clear and \igorous intellect, and 
a sound and health}' organism — the result of temperate living and absti- 
nence from the vices which ruin so many successful young men. He is 
a close student and an ardent admirer of the good and beautiful in art 
and nature. Such a man, with pleasant domestic surroundings beside, 
can pass life happily, even without the honors of otlicc or the applause 
ot men. But Go\'ernor Johnson will not sjkmuI his da\'s in retirement — 
such men are needed in our countrv, and will be sought for sooner 
or later. 



DR. JOHN SIDNEY MOORE. 



f)\R. JOHN SIDNEY MOORE is one of the pillars of the medical 
J profession in our city. From a period which extends back into 
•a time that is a recollection with very few now living, he has 
been identified with St. Louis as a practitioner and a teacher of the 
profession which he adorns. His name has come to be synonymous 
with careful and exact knowledge in that department of science which 
is one of the earliest to which the human mind addresses itself, and one 
in which it is continually greedy for further instruction and improve- 
ment. 

He was born in Orange county. North Carolina, October 5, 1807. 
His father and mother were respectively of Irish and English blood. 
While he was yet an infant, his father, who was a farmer of 
competency, removed to Tennessee. John Sidney, the oldest of the 
children, received a liberal education, and, in 1828, graduated at Cum- 
berland College, then located at Princeton, Kentucky, since removed 
to Lebanon, Tennessee. After his graduation, having determined 
upon adopting the profession of medicine, he attended the Cincinnati 
Medical College, taking his first course in 1830. In 1829, he was 
married to Miss Susan A. Morrison, daughter of the professor of 
mathematics in Cumberland College. Between his first course of 
lectures and his final graduation in 1836, he practiced medicine in 
Carlyle and Mount Vernon, Illinois. After graduating he located in 
Pulaski, Tennessee, and practiced there for a period of nearly five 
years. 

In 1840, Dr. McDowell, so justly revered for his labors in behalf of 
the profession of medicine, called him to take the chair of Obstetrics 
and Diseases of Women and Children in the Kemper, now Missouri 
Medical College. One year later, he was transferred to the professor- 
ship of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, and for thirty-four years 
has held the same chair. During this long period, he has conducted a 
laborious and extensive practice, and has, in his own person, enjoyed 
the unbroken physical health that a good constitution, determined will 



26o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and regular habits so strongly promote. With the exception of trans- 
actions in real estate, which have proven very successful, he has not 
suffered his attention to be distracted Irom the grave responsibilities 
with which his position invests him. 

Could we sweep away the mist of uncertainty that hangs over all 
human endeavor, and trace with absolute accuracy the measure of his 
usefulness, we should see thousands of skillful practitioners scattered 
over the entire country, pointing to him as the founder of their success. 
We should find a beneficent influence ramifying through every avenue 
of social life, and acknowledging him as its author. 




lez® 



THOMAS ALLEN, LL. D. 



IT has been said that we Hve in a world of fractional truths, of judg- 
ments resting on fractional premises. Perhaps this is not more 
manifest in anything than in our estimates of men's lives. We are 
prone to judge their conduct by a fixed standard, without much refer- 
ence to the conditions under which they act ; to exact of all like results 
in like positions, with little consideration for the peculiar character of 
each, which essentially enters into and qualifies their work. We make 
more allowance for the relative intelligence of men ; forgetting that 
character is a greater power in life than mere intellect. Philosophically 
considered, ability includes character as well as intellect or knowledge. 
Thomas Allen, the subject of the following brief sketch, is a man of 
strong and marked character. Without a full comprehension of it, it is 
not possible to form a fair appreciation of his life and work. He is a 
man of firm, resolute, persistent nature, patient and steadfast, self- 
reliant, reserved, but sympathetic. His temper is calm and impassive : 
his disposition is undemonstrative. His feelings and passions are deep, 
and rarely manifest on the surface. He is inflexible in all his convic- 
tions, and steadfast in all his conduct. Indeed, from whatever point of 
view we look upon Mr. Allen's career in Missouri, it must be conceded 
that, for the public importance of his administration, for the vast aggre- 
gate of his labors to advance his own and the public interests, few men 
in St. Louis or elsewhere have higher claims to eminence. For it is 
with his life in Missouri, and chiefly with his railroad fife, that the public 
are best acquainted, and it is of his services to the people of this State 
that we propose to add some words of appreciation. 

Mr. Allen belongs to a family long known in the history of Massa- 
chusetts. His grandfather, after whom he was named, was the first 
minister in the town of Pittsfield, in that State, having been ordained in 
the year 1764, and remained pastor until his death, in 181 1. He was a 
zealous patriot in the war of the Revolution ; served as chaplain in 
several campaigns, and with his musket in hand, continued with his 

126 



262 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

people at the battle of Bennington, which took place in the year 1777. 
He married Elizabeth Lee, through whom his descendents claim, among 
their ancestors, William Bradford, the second governor of the Plymouth 
colony, and one of the most distinguished of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

Of Rev. Thomas Allen's twelve children — nine sons and three daugh- 
ters — all were of marked character. Of these the Rev. William Allen 
succeeded his father in the Pittsfield pastorate, and afterwards became 
President of' Bowdoin College and an author of considerable note. 

Jonathan Allen, the father of the subject of this shetch, was several 
times Representative and Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature ; was 
quarter-master in the war of 181 2 ; was one of the founders of the Berk- 
shire Agricultural Society ; became one of the earliest importers of line 
wool sheep in Massachusetts, and w^as postmaster at Pittstield at the time 
of his death. In a word, he was through life, a man quite faultless in 
all the social relations — a devoted husband and father, a kind neighbor, 
a true and fast friend, a man of thought, enterprise and public spirit. 
By his tirst wife Mr. Jonathan Allen had two children ; by his second 
(Eunice Williams Earned, daughter of Darius Earned, of Pittsfield), 
eight, of which the third — Thomas — was born August 29, 1813. 

During the earliest boyhood of Thomas, his father occupied the home- 
stead erected on the glebe of one hundred acres, which with other lands 
had been assigned to the first minister of the town. Close by stood the 
village Academy, shaded by the famous old Forest Elm, of Pittsfield, 
and it was here that Thomas received his first schooling. At a subse- 
quent period, and while emplo3"ed on his father's farm, which graced 
the banks of the Housatonic, Professor Chester Dewey, then well 
known, and since still more distinguished, as a scholar and a naturalist, 
resigned his chair in Williams College, and established in Pittsfield a 
seminary of a peculiar character, which, under the name of the Berk- 
shire Gymnasium, immediately took a high rank among similar insti- 
tutions. At this school, his father having determined to give him a 
liberal education, Thomas completed his preparatory studies ; having 
the good fortune to be a room-mate for a while with Mark Hopkins, 
then one of the teachers, and late the venerable and eminent President 
of Williams College. 

Thomas entered Union College in 1829, attaining the requisite age 
of sixteen between the day of examination and the beginning of his first 
term. 

His college life was distinguished by no remarkable incident, but he 
maintained with ease a good standing as a scholar, and remembers with 



THOMAS ALLEN. 263 

special gratitude the senior year's instructions of President Nott, as 
having been of great advantage to him through hfe. 

He graduated in 1832, but having left college a few months previous, 
in order to commence the study of the law, he received no award of 
honors from the faculty. He, however, in accordance with the election 
of the Philomathean Society, delivered a farewell address to the class. 

His legal studies, which had been commenced at Albany, were inter- 
rupted by the approach of the cholera to that city, in its first fearful 
visitation to America ; and, before they could be resumed, family mis- 
fortunes, involving much loss of money, had rendered it impossible for 
him to resume them as before. 

The course of the young law student under these circumstances is a 
happy proof of what good New England blood, education and charac- 
ter, under the impulse of a firm will, can do in the world with twenty- 
five dollars, which his father had given him, for sole capital. He started 
for the city of New York, and, arriving there on the evening of October 
i8th, 1832, took lodging at the corner of Wall street and Broadway. 
Knowing that he had to work his passage into the profession, he kept a 
vigilant eye out for employment. Through an advertisement in the 
Evening Post of "A Clerk Wanted," Thomas obtained permission to 
remain in the office of Hatch & Cambreleng, in Wall street, where he 
could read the books, paying for the privilege in clerical labor. Here 
necessity, if nothing else, drove him to industry, and he soon won much 
of the business of the office ; became firmly installed in a clerkship, with 
a salary of three hundred dollars per annum. Here he remained for 
three years, learning the practice of law from the labors thrown upon 
him, and employing his leisure moments in studying books. Hopefully 
persevering, he increased his small income somewhat by copying for 
other members of the bar. 

In 1833 President Jackson visited New York, followed a day or two 
after by the celebrated Indian, Black Hawk. Thomas wrote an account 
of the visit of those chiefs, describing their personal appearance and the 
scenes following them in the city. He also wrote, now and then, a 
comment or a criticism upon passing events, which he sometimes pub- 
lished in the newspapers. 

In September 1834, '^^ became the editor of the Family Magazine — 
a monthly illustrated journal of useful general intelligence — J. S. Red- 
field, pubhsher. He edited this magazine, in such moments as he could 
get from his law pursuits, for about a year and a half. The magazine 
contributed materiallv to his support. About this time he was engaged 



264 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

by the principal law book-selling house of New York to assist in com- 
piling a digest of the decisions of the New York courts, from the 
earliest times down to that period. Upon this work he labored over a 
year. For his share of labor in that work, he received a small but select 
law library. 

The Fauiily Magazine flourished under his management, and some 
of his contributions to it have since been published in Sear's illustrated 
volumes, among others. The Digest, published and repubHshed, was 
long a standard work. 

In 1835, at the age of twenty-one, he was admitted to the bar by the 
New York Supreme Court, received the degree of Master of Arts from 
his Alma Mater, and was elected an honorary member of the Phi-Beta- 
Kappa of New York, an honor not often lightly bestowed. 

In 1836, he supported, by addresses in his native town and elsewhere, 
the election of Mr. Van Buren to the presidency. In the same season, 
his uncle by marriage. General E. W. Ripley, one of the well known 
heroes of Lundy's Lane, and then a Representative in Congress from 
Louisiana, invited him to remove to that State, offering to resign to him 
his law office and practice. The offer was accepted ; and although not 
carried out, proved indirectly of great influence upon Mr. Allen's future. 

In the spring of 1837, General Ripley's health of body and mind 
failing completely, Mr. Allen postponed forever, as it proved, his 
removal to Louisiana, and made a visit to Illinois to inspect scattered 
tracts of land, which his uncle owned in the military reservation of that 
State. While at Peoria he first learned of the general suspension of 
specie payments and the crushing financial misfortunes which befell the 
country. While here he received letters from eminent statesmen, urging 
him to return to Washington and establish a new journal. He at 
once returned to New York, where, at the continued solicitation of the 
friends of the enterprise, he consented to undertake it. The prospectus 
of the Madisonian was issued, and Mr. Allen was soon at his post, in 
Washington, with presses, printing materials and printers. The first 
number of the Madisonian was issued August 16, 1837, and met a 
favorable reception all over the country. Congress met on the ist of 
September, in extra session, and the message of President Van Buren 
was unexpectedly found to recommend the sub-treasury scheme, which 
was understood to foreshadow a war upon the currency, and was certain 
to endow the Executive with excessive patronage and power. The 
Madisonian had assumed its position and maintained it, without regard 
to the unlooked-for opposition of Mr. Van Buren. An immediate 



THOMAS ALI>EN. 265 

opportunity to test its strength occurred, and at the election for pubHc 
printer, and after a hard contest for three days, Mr. Allen was chosen 
on the twelfth ballot, his opponents being Messrs. Gales and Seaton, of 
the Intelligencer , and Messrs. Blair and Rives, of the Globe. 

In the preparation of the political campaign of 1840, Mr. Allen pre- 
ferred as a candidate for the presidency, Hon. WilHam C. Rives, of 
Virginia, a conservative Democrat; but upon the nomination of Messrs. 
Harrison and Tyler, finding their real views to differ little from his own, 
and feeling the folly of maintaining a separate organization in opposition 
to Mr. Van Buren, he gave them a zealous, laborious and persevering 
support, as the representatives of true democratic republican principles. 

In the midst of the campaign, on the nth of April, 1840, his printing 
office, with all that he possessed except his library, was burned, as was 
supposed, by an incendiary. But on the 2d of May, the Madisonian 
re-appeared, announcing itself : 

"Self-born, begotten by the parent flame 
In which it burned — another, yet the same." 

Its vigor, as may be imagined, was not diminished by the ordeal of 
fire, and it reached, during the presidential campaign, the circulation — 
then very large — of twenty thousand. 

Nor was Mr. Allen's voice silent during that contest. He addressed 
the National Convention of young men, at Baltimore, as one of its vice- 
presidents ; spoke at a pubHc dinner given him by the citizens of his 
native town ; and made political speeches in several States. 

The result of the election in the overwhelming choice of Messrs. Har- 
rison and Tyler is a matter of histor}^ General Harrison, on his arrival 
at Washington, cordially acknowledged the great services of Mr. Allen, 
said that he had correctly represented his views, and consulted him on 
the formation of his cabinet. Of the sad group who stood by his bed- 
side when the venerable President died, Mr. Allen was one. 

Passing over much that is interesting in Mr. Allen's history, we come 
down to the spring of 1842, when he moved to St. Louis, where on the 
1 2th of the following July, he married Miss Ann C. Russell, the 
daughter of William Russell, Esq., of this city. He opened a law office 
here, but soon closed it, and began to devote his attention to public 
interests, and was mainly instrumental in the establishment of the St. 
Louis Horticultural Society, of which he became president. In 1848, 
he began those labors in behalf of internal improvements in Missouri 
and neighboring States, which have continued ever since, and have 



266 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

accomplished results which could hardly have been hoped for at that 
time. 

His first efibrt in behalf of railroads, or at least the first of a public 
character of which we find mention, was an address to the voters of St. 
Louis, in behalf of a subscription to the St. Louis and Cincinnati rail- 
road, written at the request of a public meeting in 1848. 

In February 1849, at a large meeting of the citizens of St. Louis, 
called to take action for a line of railroad to the Pacific coast, Mr. Allen 
reported resolutions strongly in favor of such a national central high- 
way, which were unanimously passed, and were approved by the. State 
Legislature. 

In the October following, under a call of the citizens of St. Louis, 
written by Mr. Allen, a national convention assembled in this city, dele- 
gates from fourteen States being present. Senator Benton, Mr. Allen, 
and others made speeches in favor of the enterprise, and to Mr. Allen 
was entrusted the preparation of an address to the people of the United 
States and a memorial to Congress. 

In January 1850, Mr. Allen called public attention to the charter of 
the Pacific Railroad, which had been procured, and at a called meeting 
he read an address whose comprehensiveness of view, accuracy and 
fullness of detail, and earnestness of manner, were irresistibly convin- 
cing, and $154,000 of the stock was taken on the spot. Ground was 
broken on the road July 4, 185 1, and the contractors were fairl}^ at work 
in September. 

In 1850 Mr. Allen was chosen for four 3'ears to the Senate of Mis- 
souri, where he was immediately made chairman of the Committee on 
Internal Improvements, and by persevering efibrts, succeeded in obtain- 
incr a loan of the State credit in aid of the road to the amount of 
$2,000,000. 

In 1852, Mr. Allen proposed a plan which, although the Legislature 
was not then prepared to accept it as a whole, was subsequently carried 
out, and a loan of State credit to each, with the exception of one line, 
was made. 

The system comprised the following lines : The original Pacific with 
a State loan of $3,000,000, and an assignment of 1,250,000 acres of the 
national land grant; the Southwestern branch — loan $1,000,000; Iron 
Mountain — loan $750,000 ; Hannibal and St. Joseph — loan $1,500,000, 
land grant, 600.000 acres ; North Missouri — loan $2,000,000. 

Thus in three or four years of hard work, a very great part of which 
fell to Mr. Allen, and under his well directed influence, the apathy which 



THOMAS ALLEN. 267 

had hung over the State in regard to internal improvements was broken 
up, and a policy estabhshed which may well be called liberal. 

In 1834, thirty-eight miles of the road being in operation, and over 
one hundred more under construction, Mr. Allen resigned his position 
as president and director of the Pacific road. In the same year Mr. 
Allen also retired from the Senate, and declined are-nomination, which 
was tendered him. 

In 1857, Mr. Allen was chosen president of the Terre Haute, Alton 
and St. Louis Railroad, but finding it deeply in debt, withdrew and 
recommended a re-organization. 

In 1858, he founded the well known banking house of Allen, Copp & 
Nisbet, of St. Louis, he furnishing the capital. 

Entrusted by the State of Missouri with $900,000 of her guaranteed 
bonds, in aid of the southern branch of the Pacific Railroad, he dis- 
posed of them to great advantage, and without charge. 

When the civil war broke out in 1861, Mr. Allen was found on the 
Union side, and aided, with all the means at his command, the Union 
cause. 

In 1862 he was candidate for Congress of the "Unconditional Union 
men" of the Second Missouri District, and was defeated by means 
familiar enough in those distracted days, but which we will not here 
discuss. 

In 1865, Mr. Allen, with his eldest son and daughter, visited Great 
Britain and the continent of Europe. 

In 1866, he presented a plan for the liquidation of the national debt 
by a grand patriotic subscription, in commutation of taxes, and also 
based, in part, on re-payment in public lands. 

B}' purchase, Mr. Allen became the owner of the Iron Mountain 
Railroad in the year 1867, it having been surrendered to the State with 
only eighty-six miles completed. In spite of great natural and poli- 
tical obstructions, he finished the road to Belmont in 1869, 120 miles 
further. He then extended a branch from Pilot Knob to Arkansas in 
1871-72, and having, with his associates, purchased the Cairo and Fulton 
Railroad, of Arkansas, he completed that road in i872-'73 from Cairo 
to Texarkana, some 375 miles. He thus constructed about 100 miles of 
railroad every year for six years. While doing so he was president of 
four difi'erent railroad corporations, all of which were consolidated in 
May, 1874, under the title of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern 
Railway, the w^hole of which, in the aggregate, were 686 miles long. 
Connected with this extensive property, in w^hich, first and last, some 



268 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

$24,000,000 have been invested, is a landed estate, in Missouri and 
Arkansas, of about 1,500,000 acres. 

Mr. Allen was a member of and took a prominent part in the organi- 
zation of the National Board of Trade at Philadelphia and Cincinnati in 
1868. In 1871 he endowed a professorship in Washington University, 
of St. Louis, with the annual interest of $40,000, at 7 per cent., which 
is well known as the "Allen Professorship of Mining and Metallurgy." 
In 1872 he was elected president of the University Club, of St. Louis, 
its members consisting of the graduates of all colleges, and embracing 
other men of culture, and numbering now near three hundred. The 
same year he was elected president of the Railway Association of 
America, which is devoted to railway economy. He has also estab- 
lished a free library in his native town of Pittsfield, Mass., and erected 
for it a beautiful stone edifice, at a cost of about $50,000. Here he 
habitually spends his summers, and amidst his native hills and vales he 
indulges himself in what he considers the luxury of a farm, and takes 
not a little pleasure and pride in his Jersey cattle. Southdown sheep and 
other fruits of agriculture. He is president of an Alumni Association 
of his Alma Mater, and, while engaged in an important land litigation in 
court in Mississippi county in 1853, received from Union College, New 
York, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. He is an honorary 
member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and a member of 
several other prominent societies, such as the New York and Wisconsin 
Horticultural Societies ; a fellow of the American Academy of Design, 
and of the American Geographical Society. He spent the summer of 
1874 in London and Paris, his youngest son accompanying him. 

While he is the presiding officer of the several corporations men- 
tioned, and of several others not named, he is also the head of a 
family, reared in Missouri, consisting of his wife, four sons and three 
daughters, and may be pronounced one of the busiest executive men in 
the nation. Several thousand persons have, at times, been in his 
employment, developing the wealth and advancing the civilization of 
the country, their joint labors with his tending directly to promote the 
growth of his adopted city. His mind and character have strengthened 
with his labors. Innumerable questions in law and physics, in political 
economy, natural and moral philosophy, trade, commerce and finance, 
are pressed upon him, in the emergencies of his varied business, for 
practical solution. Some men become doctors of law nominally by 
favor. Upon him the doctorate is thrust by force of circumstances. 
To perform his duties successfully requires robust health, clear brain. 



THOMAS ALLEN. 269 

cool judgment, imperturbable temper, varied knowledge, industry and 
great experience. He is one who makes history, and his works are his 
best monument. When they are finished, truly may he say '^'Excgi 
tnonumcntuni <Brc ■percnnius.'''' 

Of Mr. Allen it would be faint praise to say that his private relations 
are above reproach. His personal morality is of the highest type. He 
is unostentatious, just and honorable. He is exceptionally consistent in 
all his personal connections. The ties of kindred are intensely strong 
and close with him, and he fosters the welfare of those to whom they 
bind him with excessive care. As head of a family, he is a model for 
men to applaud and copy. It may truly be said of him, that he walks 
all the common ways of life with the upright carriage of a considerate, 
kindly, worthy. Christian gentleman. 




WealeniEiigivmiisCompanyofSl J»jjis, 




GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 



aENERAL WILLIAM SELBY HARNEY stands among us a 
monument and an illustration of the second period in the military 
history of our country. The first period, which covers the Revolu- 
tion and the subsequent struggle which the initial force of its policy led 
up to, was controlled by men collected from all nations, and from every 
avocation. A great idea had but one field upon which it could find a 
satisfactory solution, and the genius of the world was collected upon 
our shores to give embodiment to the darling hope of centuries. All 
were earnest, most were heroic : yet, they became congruous only 
through the unity of a thought to which recorded history has furnished 
no parallel. They were all patriots, and some of them were soldiers. 
They organized such forces as they could command, and our Republic 
was the fruit of their devotion. On occasions when their skill might 
have been questioned, the purity of their motives silenced all criticism. 
Their services have crystallized into history, which it is our dearest 
duty to preserve and honor. 

In the second period, our military operations were directed b}' profes- 
sional soldiers. The early heroes, profiting by their own experience 
and the teachings of history, were the founders of a system under 
which the flower of the youth of the Republic were bred to the 
profession of arms. The system was one which all human experience 
approved, and one for which no adequate substitute can ever be devised. 
It gave to the nation a body of officers skilled in the science and art 
of war, whose habits of thought, accuracy of judgment, and promptness 
of action, made them in a very considerable measure the counselors of 
statesmen, as they were also the custodians of the national honor. 
Entirely divorced from the operations of trade and the machinery of 
politics by their education, their life and their ambitions, their judgment 
was not warped by any of the considerations which are so potent in 
civil life. Beneath each uniform was the heart of a paladin in action. 



272 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of an unselfish intelligence in council. To the system rather than the 
individuals that composed it, are to be attributed the peculiarities 
presented by its members. 

These are the men who in our army and navy carried the flag of the 
nation with honor ; who in general applied, when they did not direct, 
the policy of our intercourse with the nations of the old world, and our 
neighbors in this. They were frequently called upon to decide nice 
questions of diplomacy and international law, in situations where 
blunders would have magnified into crimes : yet the uniformly high 
character of those decisions is a proper subject for national pride. Our 
intercourse with the Indians, whether friendly or hostile, was almost 
entirely in their hands ; and when exceptionally not so, it was a matter 
of regret. They faced the brave Aborigines of North America for 
half a century — a people of keen discernment and the highest genius 
for war that has been developed by any native race in the world. 
Using force with prudence, yet preferring conciliation when it did not 
conflict with justice, they commanded the respect and admiration of 
their enemies, as well as of their own people. Their picket line on the 
frontier was the protection of civilization against the vengeance of the 
Indians and the rapacity of the Mexicans. 

This, the second period of our military history, may be said to have 
ended with the opening of the civil war. With that great struggle, the 
incidents of which are too fresh in the minds of men to be accurately 
viewed, came the opening of the third period. In some respects it was 
not unlike the first. New men, with questionable claims to preferment, 
were placed in command of men, simply because armies were too 
numerous to be officered by professional soldiers. Politics and intrigue 
united also with military reasons in shaping a military policy. Armies 
were formed in which men and officers were equally ignorant of the 
business of war, and it took time to acquire that discipline which alone 
can make valor formidable to civilized man. 

It is with the second of these periods that General Harney is identified. 
For nearly half a century he wore his country's uniform, and through 
all bore himself with dignity, and distinguished honor and ability. Hio 
record has already passed into history with the period to which it 
belongs, and is now, so far as it goes, secure from the danger of being 
misunderstood. Of his services at the opening of the civil war, and the 
policy which he had marked out, there is much to be said. 

He was born in Davidson county, Tennessee, August 22, 1800 ; and 
is the youngest of eight children. He was early marked for military 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 273 

life, and on the 13th of February, 1818, was appointed by President 
Monroe to the army. 

His father was one of the early setders of Tennessee, and one of the 
best known and most highly considered men in the State. Unsuccessful 
as a merchant, he became a surveyor, and, in that profession, became 
known and esteemed throughout Tennessee. 

General Harney, when a boy, had contemplated entering the navy, 
and to that end studied navigation, and fitted himself, so far as circum- 
stances permitted, for that profession. 

Nature had gifted him with the finest physical organization, and left 
no weak points. In person he is six feet and three inches in height, 
well rounded, without any superfluous flesh, and as Hthe and firm as 
steel. The dark red hair of his youth has in three-quarters of a century 
become entirely white, yet he retains the grace and manly vigor of his 
prime. The same decisive and elastic step, the same mental activity 
and determination that disdnguished his early manhood, distinguish also 
his venerable age. 

While on a visit to a brother who was a surgeon in the army at Baton 
Rouge, he was appointed to a lieutenancy in the First regiment of 
infantry, and a few days later his company was sent to southern Louisi- 
ana, to break up the contraband trade carried on by Lafitte and the 
notorious pirates he had gathered around him. A few months later he 
was sent to Boston on recruiting service, here he remained about a 
year. In July, 1820, he returned to New Orleans with about 130 
recruits, and at once joined his command at Baton Rouge, and soon 
after was ordered to Devil's Swamp, and from there was sent home on 
account of ill-health among the men. 

The succeeding year, 1821, the famous treaty with Spain was eftected, 
which gave the United States possession of the territory of Florida by 
purchase. General Jackson, however, on taking possession in behalf 
of the Government, exercised all the authority of the old Spanish Gov- 
ernor. One of his aides-de-camp being absent, he requested Lieutenant 
Harney to act in his stead. This kept him in Florida undl the final 
consummation of the treaty, which formally took place with the exchange 
of flags. With the close of these formalities. General Jackson was 
mustered out at his own request, and Lieutenant Harney was ordered to 
Baton Rouge. Upon arrival at Baton Rouge he was transferred to the 
First artillery and sent to Eastport, Maine, and Lieutenant Brent was 
sent to Baton Rouge in his stead. The change was disastrous to the 
temporary health of the two men, and the next year they were re- 

18 



274 . BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

transferred, and Lieutenant Harney reached his old post. The next 
year, 1823, an Indian war was anticipated, and four companies from 
Baton Rouge, his own among the number, were moved North. Stop- 
ping for a short time at St. Louis, they started for Council Bluffs, but 
had gone only about twenty miles when an express met them with the 
information that peace had been declared, and the command spent the 
winter at Belief ontaine, fifteen miles above St. Louis. 

The next spring they moved up to Council Blufl:s with a Peace Com- 
mission, composed of General Atkinson and Major Ben. O' Fallon, with 
Mr. Langham as secretary, and made treaties with all the tribes on the 
Upper Missouri as high as what Lewis and Clark called the Two Thou- 
sand Mile creek. One tribe could not be found — the Assinaboins — a 
warlike and powerful band of the Sioux. 

The Mandans were the last of the tribes with whom treaties were 
completed. 

Council Bluffs was the rendezvous. The present city of Council 
Bluffs, opposite Omaha, is situated upon the site of the trading house of 
Mr. Cabiness and his son Charles. Old Council Bluffs (Fort Atkinson) 
was about fifteen miles below, on the same side of the river. The fact 
is one not generally known, and has even been disputed by those whose 
recollections have been so confused as to mislead them. 

On the conclusion of the treaties, the first and sixth regiments of 
infantry returned to Council Bluffs, where Lieutenant Harney received 
promotion to a captaincy. In 1825 he proceeded to New Orleans to 
take command of his company. In the fall or 1827 he was ordered to 
Jefferson Barracks. In the summer of 1828, under the command of 
General Atkinson, he participated in an expedition against the Winne- 
bago Indians, in Wisconsin, but they submitted, and made treaties 
before active hostilities began. When Captain Harney first came to 
Jefferson Barracks, they were in process of construction ; after his return 
from this latter expedition, they were completed. A portion of the First 
infantry, including Captain Harney's company, was soon after ordered 
to Prairie du Chien, and from there, his company and that of Captain 
Cobb, were ordered to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to reheve the Fifth 
infantry. The succeeding autumn the ' two companies were ordered 
back, under Major Twiggs, to the portage between the Wisconsin and 
Fox rivers, to establish a post which was afterward called Winnebago. 
Their arrival there about the middle of October, 1828, was signalized 
the next day by a fall of snow about four inches in depth, and very 
severe weather. The next two years were years of monotony and peace 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 275 

in Fort Winnebago. The whites and reds were getting along in com- 
parative quiet, when the Black Hawk war broke out. 

Captain Harney had come to St. Louis where he saw preparations for 
war going forward. When he left Rock Island there were all indica- 
tions of a continued peace. Hastening back to his post, he took part in 
the preparations going on there. 

Regulars and volunteers assembled at Rock Island, and started out in 
pursuit of the enemy. Provisions soon became scarce, and General 
Atkinson ordered the volunteers to pursue a certain route, and if they met 
no Indians they would be discharged. If they found them in formidable 
force, he would come on with the regulars, subsisting them on horse 
meat, and assist in the fight. Captain Harney, with a Captain Gordon, 
then unattached, and a party of four men, started out on a reconnois- 
sance. They soon found the Indian village, and reported the fact at 
their own camp. Once the volunteers camped on a spot where the 
Indians had been before them, and where they had trimmed their scalps. 
This should have been enough to have aroused the spirit of vengeance in 
the most sluggish breast, but the volunteers avoided a fight by moving 
out of the path laid down for them by the General, and were mustered 
out at Ottumwa. 

Another levy of volunteers was made, and a force collected under 
General Whitsides that made another expedition, and a fighting one. 
Many of those mustered out joined again for the second term, and did 
gallant service. 

When the second expedition arrived at the mouth of the White 
Water, the Indian trail was lost. General Atkinson, from information 
which had been conveyed to him, sent for Captain Harney for consulta- 
tion. Captain Harney told him that the Indians had but one hiding 
place in the whole country, and that was not difficult to find. He asked 
for fifty men to make a reconnoissance. The General thought so small 
a party in danger of being entirely cut off", and told him to take along 
also 300 of the Potowotamies, a friendly tribe attached to our force. 
Upon consulting with the Indian chief, he said he thought his men 
would not go with such a small force, and after a talk of some of the 
the leaders, they did indeed refuse. Captain Harney, therefore, started 
with his fifty men and thirty friendly Menonomes. Soon he came upon 
one sign after another, showing him to be near the Indian camp, when 
the friendly Indians counseled a return. Captain Harney, however, 
persisted, and all the Indians left him except one, who told him he 
would stay b}- and die with him, if it came to that. This Indian was 



276 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

one with whom Captain Harney had once had a desperate hand to hand 
fight, in which the savage had been overpowered and disarmed. After 
that he was a steadfast friend of his white ally. Proceeding in his 
quest, he came at last to where a fire was burning brightly, and knew 
that he was close upon the Indian position. He then returned to camp 
and made his report. On his return he found much alarm for his 
safety, on account of the reports which had preceded him, given out 
b}'^ the Indians who had gone back. Captain Harney had located the 
position of the Indians, but about four hours later an express arrived 
from General Dodge, with the information that he was upon the Indian 
trail, and in close pursuit. From that time, it was a forced march to 
the Mississippi river. The Indian enemy was disheartened and getting 
away as rapidly as possible. Those who were unable to cross the river 
at last made a desperate light, but it was the fight of despair, in which 
they had nothing to gain and no hope save in a treaty. 

General Scott, who had hastened on from Chicago with artillerv, 
arrived at Rock Island after the war was over and the troops had 
assembled there, and made a treatv. With the artillerv he also brouo-ht 
cholera of a malignant type, which killed off one-sixth of the whole force. 

The humbled and conquered Indians were anxious for peace, and 
disposed to keep quiet. This was the termination of the Black Hawk 
war. After the treaty. Captain Harney obtained leave of absence for 
some months, which time he spent in St. Louis. During his stay in St. 
Louis he became engatjed to be married. 

About the time of expiration of his leave in 1832, he proceeded to 
Washington, and was appointed a Paymaster. The appointment was 
given him by General Jackson, and without any solicitation on his part. 
His duties then called him from post to post, and were fulfilled by him 
for two years. In 1835 the Second Dragoons was raised, as the bill 
said, "for the better defense of the Western frontier." The bill itself 
was the work of General Ashley, member of Congress from St. Louis. 
Major D. E. Twiggs was appointed Colonel, and Wharton Rector, of 
Arkansas, was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel. Rector, who seems to 
have been unambitious of distinction in the line, would rather be a Pay- 
master, with the rank of Major, than Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, 
while Harney, who became a Major on his appointment as Paymaster, 
was eager for the appointment. 

As the first step toward the consummation of their wish. Rector 
declined, and Harney resigned his commission. Major Harney, 
accompanied by Rector, then went to see General Jackson, at the 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 277 

Hermitage, who gratified both, by appointing Rector to the paymaster- 
ship, and Harney to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Dragoons. 

A few months after this change, our Western frontier yet remained 
quiet ; but trouble had originated in Florida, and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Harney volunteered to take command of some 350 men, who had been 
recruited in New York and other Eastern cities for his regiment, and to 
proceed to Florida for service. 

His offer was immediately accepted, and he was ordered to Florida. 
On taking command at Black Creek, he was ordered to Lake Monroe, 
on St. John's river, when he was met by a detachment of two com- 
panies of artillery, under Colonel Fanning, to whom he relinquished 
the command. Colonel Harney's long experience as an Indian fighter 
was of signal advantage to the command at the outset. On the second 
day he discovered that Indians were about, and on the third day he 
communicated to the commanding officer his conviction that their camp 
had been reconnoitered the night before, and that they would be 
attacked at once. Rather to give confidence to the recruits, than from 
any substantial principle of defense, he counseled the erection of tem- 
porary breastworks. The men who were unused to fighting, even if 
impressed with a sense of safety by such works that were mainly illu- 
sory, would be preserved from the greater danger of a panic. Not one 
of them had as yet heard an Indian yell, and it required careful manage- 
ment at the outset to make them staunch soldiers. The event proved 
the correctness of the prediction, as an attack was made before day the 
next morning, though very little damage was done on either side. From 
this time on, the camp on the lake, called Fort Mellen in honor of a 
captain who was killed there, was occupied by the troops until fall. 
The serious business of these months was the drilling of the troops, but 
sickness prevailing later on in the season, the command was ordered to 
the seaboard, at the mouth of the St. John's river. 

The campaign being closed for the season. Colonel Harney spent the 
summer at his home in St. Louis, on a leave of absence. 

The next year opened with General Jessup in command, and Fort 
Mellen as the base of operations. Several little skirmishes occurred 
when the Indians met them in force at a creek called Elusahatchie, 
near Jupiter inlet. The Indians were occupying a very strong position 
General Eustis formed his command of six hundred men, with Colonel 
Harney and his dismounted dragoons on the right. Colonel Harney 
soon discovered that in the position which he occupied he would not be 



278 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHE.S. 

in the fight at all, and that the Indians would not be driven from their 
position without a change in the plan of assignment. 

On our left, when the attack commenced, the Indians fought furiously, 
and were getting the best of the battle. They were in a position from 
which they could not be dislodged from the front, and were inflicting 
much damage. Colonel Harney made a rapid reconnoissance and then, 
under the circumstances, determined upon a change in the plan of 
assignment. Dexterously crossing the stream in front with his whole 
force, he attacked furiously in the Indian rear, and the result was a 
total rout in a few minutes. 

On our left the volunteers had fallen back under a murderous fire, 
when they met the reproaches of General Jessup. They replied that 
they had no commander ; Jessup gallantly put himself at their head, and 
led them back. He became at once a mark for the enem}^ One bullet 
striking him in the temple would have killed him had it not been deflect- 
ed by the frame of his spectacles. Stopping under the fire of the sharp- 
shooters he coolly recovered his glasses and retired, the volunteers 
having left him alone while he was searching for his spectacles. Colonel 
Harney asked permission to pursue, which was granted, but had barely 
made his arrangements and proceeded a few hundred yards, when a 
most remarkable rain storm put a stop to the movement. The rain fell 
in such torrents that progress was impossible. Next morning some Del- 
awares, who were in the United States service, and who had been recon- 
noitering, reported that they had found the Indians in Ibrce. General 
Eustis, who was the local commander, ordered Colonel Twiggs to send 
Colonel Harney with four companies after them. Colonel Harney was 
eating dinner when the order came, and was astounded at the inadequacy 
of the force ; yet he proceeded at once to its execution. On reaching the 
place where the Indians were reported to be, he ordered his dragoons to 
dismount and tie their horses, fully convinced that the}- would have no 
further use for them after the fight that was about to be brought on. 

Reaching their camp, he was surprised to find that they had all fled 
into the everglades. Next day the entire force moved down to Jupiter 
inlet, and sent to Indian river for supplies. Reaching there, Colonel 
Harney, who was familiar with the Indian character, advised sending 
for the Indians for the purpose of trying to effect a treat}^ He was con- 
fident that they had been sufficiently punished and terrified to secure a 
desirable and permanent peace. At his instance, the treaty was made, 
and resulted in emigrating more Indians to the West than had been 
moved since the commencement of the war by every other commander. 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 279 

After this treaty, there was yet a warlike band, under Sam Jones, 
that continued hostile ; and Harne}', with his dragoons dismounted, pur- 
sued them into the hunting grounds. After a pursuit for about a 
hundred miles, much of the marching done at night, Harney surprised 
them, and attacked, when they fled into the Mango swamps, where 
troops could not follow. From this expedition he returned to Tampa 
Bay. In one of his skirmishes, one of his men had accidentally shot an 
Indian woman, and, it was thought, mortally wounded her. He was 
much distressed at the thought of killing a woman. It was told to 
Colonel Harney that this was Sam Jones' wife, and that as the chief 
would probably come after her that night, he could set a trap for him 
and kill or capture him. This, Colonel Harney refused to do, saying 
that an enemy, when seeking to succor his wife, should be free from 
harm by him. The woman was placed outside of the camp, and made 
as comfortable as possible, and that night she was secretly removed by 
Sam Jones. To the great joy of the man who shot her, and of his 
comrades, she was afterward discovered alive and well. 

Some months after the close of this last expedition. General McCombs 
was sent down by the Secretary of War with a carte blanche., to use his 
own discretion in putting an end to the war, and to make a treaty upon 
any terms he thought proper. 

The treaty was finally consummated at Fort King. The chief was 
too old to come, but he sent Chitto Tustenuggee, as a special deputy 
with power to treat. Under the invitations sent around for the Indians 
to meet General McComb, at Fort King, they came in. Colonel 
Harney, who had been consulted by General McComb, laid down a 
proposition which he thought would be acceptable to both parties. As 
a basis, he said, the Indians must have undisputed possession of a cer- 
tain section of land, and this could be given them where it would be 
almost valueless to white men. General McComb, with his pencil, first 
marked off a very large section, all of which he was willing to concede. 
The boundary would have given the Indians nearly the whole of the 
peninsula. Colonel Harney thought it would be proper to cut down 
the limits materially, as that would satisfy the Indians, and also have 
less tendency to excite the encroaching spirit of the whites. These 
amended limits for the Indian reserve were finally formally adopted at 
the treaty. The Indians were very suspicious, but had great confidence 
in Colonel Harney ; and he assured them, if any change was proposed 
by the Government, he would give them all of his ammunition, ] and 



28o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

three days to prepare, before he would make any hostile movement if 
the treaty was not suffered to stand. 

The pledge of Colonel Harney was perfectly satisfactory and harmony 
was restored. A trading post was established on the Caloosahatchie, 
the Indians were told to make their complaints to Harney, if they had 
any, and to look to him for everything they wanted. He had the repu- 
tation among them of being perfectly upright, as well as thoroughly 
brave, and they were happy and satisfied and confiding. 

In the meantime, Colonel Harney, in the line of his duty, went over 
to Tampa bay to visit General Taylor. His object was to secure two 
companies for the protection of the trading house and the country. He 
was anxious to carry out the expressed views of the administration. He 
knew that the Indians had been enemies too long to be suddenl}^ trusted, 
and he saw the necessity of a force adequate to hold them in check. In 
spite of his entreaties. General Taylor stubbornly refused to let him have 
any men, or even a single officer. It is perhaps fortunate for Colonel 
Harney that he took the precaution of at once writing out this conversa- 
tion and enclosing it to General McComb, as an explanation of his 
course. While he was gone, events transpired of which he was unfor- 
tunately in ignorance. 

The Floridians were opposed to the Indians staying in the country at 
all, and were loth to believe that the treaty had really been consummated. 
One of their number, a gentleman from Tallahassee, wrote to the 
Secretary of War to inquire if the treaty was made in good faith and 
was to be adhered to by the United States. The Secretary, Mr. Poin- 
sett, replied that it was a mere temporary arrangement, that it was an 
expedient to get the Indians together, so that they might be emigrated 
more readily. The news, almost as soon as it arrived, was known to 
the Indians, and they had time to meditate over an act which we may 
excuse savages for believing was a cold-blooded double treachery. 

On Colonel Harney's return from Tampa Bay, he knew nothing of 
this correspondence, but the Spanish residents had read it, and the 
Indians were fully informed of it through them. They judged, in their 
suspicion, that Harney was a party to this heartless perfidy, and were 
planning vengeance, while he was unconscious of the whole afiair. 
Billy Bowlegs came down to the boat and told him that the chiefs 
wanted to see him. Harne}' replied that he would wait and see them. 
It was afterward known that this was a ruse to shut oft' any possible 
chance of his escaping the massacre they were planning. A sergeant and 
the traders at the post came on board, and Harney conferred with them 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 281 

as to the behavior of the Indians. Their tone of confidence in the 
good intentions and peaceful disposition of the Indians did not please 
him, and he cautioned them against any relaxation of vigilance. Intend- 
ing to review the disposition made of the troops, he lav down in his 
tent to rest, but long exposure in the hot sun had made him unusually 
tired, and he slept soundly until awakened in the morning by firing and 
the yelling of Indians. Rushing to the front of his tent, he saw his men 
being slaughtered and without arms, some of them struggling in the 
water, and being killed with their own guns. His first act was to get on 
his boots, but he thought that useless ; his next resolve was to die with 
his men. But there were no men there ; those who were not killed w^ere 
scattered fugitives, without arms, and the instinct of self-preservation 
made itself felt, with no duty to come in conflict with it. That the 
Indians had risen was apparent when he first heard the noise, but he 
was entirely ignorant of the cause. With the desire to save himself, he 
yet saw no way, until, as an inspiration, the thought came. 

Running down the edge of the bay, distant about two hundred 3^ards, 
he walked into the water and then walked backward out again to the 
shore, thus conveying the impression that tw'o men had walked in. As 
he disappeared in the underbrush of the shore, he heard the baflfled yell 
of the Indians as they entered his tent. They had stopped to plunder 
in the quarters of the men and delayed sufficiently for him to get a 
start. On reaching the point where he entered the water, they con- 
cluded that he and a companion had drowned themselves rather than be 
killed by them. A negro who was with them and who was friendly, 
but who was yet more attached to Harney than to them, also did what 
he could to mislead them and so give him valuable time. With all the 
Indian confidence in his power and respect for his soldierly qualities, 
there was mingled too, a superstitious fear that made them w^ary and 
increased his chances for escape. One of his men, who had noticed 
his stratagem while hidden in the palmetto thicket on the shore, soon 
joined him in his painful and perilous march. His objective point ^vas 
a lumber pile, fifteen miles away from camp, much of the distance over 
mango roots that made the walk distressing. In the operations of the 
four preceding days the lumber pile had borne some part. To reach 
this point that might already be in the hands of the Indians, required, 
on his part, all the address and endurance that were possessed by his 
savage foe. He had to make experimental trips to the water, to learn 
his location ; and, if he met any Indians, his safety depended on seeing 



282 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

them tirst. On one of these reconnoitering trips, Britton, the man who 
was with him, reported that he had discovered the Indians. 

"Britton," said his Colonel, "do you feel that you can fight?" 

"Yes, sir," "I will die with the Colonel ;" stoutly replied the man 
whose business it was to fight, though they had both but lately passed 
through scenes that chill the marrow of brave men. The}' had seen 
their comrades killed without an}^ chance to make a defense. 

The Colonel then said: "Let us cut some of these pointed limbs to 
make them cautious in approaching us. They will make good weapons, 
too, when we come close." 

The next step was to cut some of the luxuriant grass and bind it about 
their heads as a protection against the blistering sun, and then to recon- 
noiter the enemy, so as to get the first sight and keep themselves hidden. 
To raise his head above the bank was the labor of minutes, and the first 
thing that he saw was . his canoe. In the canoe, if not disturbed, he 
knew there should be a harpoon, which he used in his fishing expedi- 
tions, and the present occasion would make it a very effective weapon. 
On reaching the canoe the harpoon was there, and Colonel Harney's 
gratification expressed itself in a yell that made the sluggish forests of 
Florida resound for miles. Some afterward said they heard it five 
miles distant. He was again a Christian warrior with a canoe beneath 
his foot, and a trusty though somewhat peculiar weapon in his hand, 
and he could 3-et exercise the prerogatives of a commander : the succor 
of fugitives, and attention to his dead. Instructing Britton in paddHng 
the canoe, the two paddled on until they overtook a boat load of their 
own men, and then Colonel Harne}- announced his intention of going 
back to see what had become of his force that very night, even if he 
had to go alone. The men, though badly demoralized, volunteered to 
go with him though he would not order them to do so. The night was 
a bright moonlight one : the worst possible for his purpose. His whole 
force consisted of seven men with insufficient arms, yet he made the 
reconnoissance with five men and two guns, andcollected and counted the 
dead for the purpose of gaining tidings of the living. He looked in the 
faces of the men and found them all but five. Goaded by the ghastly 
sight around him and a soldierl}^ desire to avenge his comrades at once, 
he was anxious to make an attack upon the Indians that night in their 
camp. Colonel Harney relied upon a surprise, and the fact that two 
barrels of whisky, that they had found in the sutlers' stores, had prob- 
ably placed most of them in a condition that would keep them out of a 
fight. There were but five' men in the party, as two of the seven had 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 283 

been left in the rear with the other boat, and these live were too much 
unnerved to be wilHng to take the hazard. It is possible that the meas- 
ure of the courage of these men was in truth the measure of safety. 
Colonel Harney's solicitude for his men who were yet living led him 
to shout and invite them to him. Two of them, he afterward learned, 
heard him but were fearful that it was an Indian ruse to draw them from 
their hiding places. The sad party then left ; one party was sent back 
to Tampa Bay with the painful intelligence, and the Colonel went to 
Cape Florida, his headquarters. 

Three Englishmen who belonged to the United States forces, were in 
a manner responsible for the trouble, in that they fomented the suspi- 
cions of the Indians and precipitated the outbreak. They afterward 
paid the penalty which an act of treachery always brings down upon its 
perpetrators. The Indians were always distrustful of them and at last 
killed them as an act of self-defense. 

Colonel Harney was yet painfully ignorant of the cause of the out- 
break, where all had seemed so happy and satisfactory, when the mail 
packet arrived at Cape Florida with letters and papers, and the famous 
letter of Poinsett, Secretary of War, for whose lack of moral courage and 
double-dealing, brave men in the front had been sacrificed. 

Colonel Harney went to Washington determined to sift the matter to 
the bottom. He saw General McComb, who asserted that he acted 
under a carte blanche from Poinsett. Of that. Colonel Harney was 
already perfectly aware, as the authority had been produced when he 
arrived in Florida, and yet he was unwilling to prefer charges that 
would lead to a thorough investigation. 

It soon became evident, however, that an investigation was not to be 
had, and he left Washington without getting any satisfaction. Colonel 
Harney was now assigned to the command of the district of the eastern 
coast of the Atlantic, and proceeded vigorously against a band of 
Spanish Indians, of which Chekikee was the chief. The band were 
pirates, deserving extermination, and were a part of the band that had 
murdered his men at Caloosahatchie. Retribution, swift and terrible, 
was now to come upon them. 

On taking leave of General Twiggs, Colonel Harney promised that 
he would send him Chekikee' s scalp — a promise that he shortly fulfilled. 

On the trip down to Cape Florida, an incident occurred which shows 
the deliberation with which Colonel Harney acted, and the reticence 
that marked his official life. The steamer broke a shaft, near the 
mouth of New Smyrna river, and another vessel had to be procured. 



284 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

While waiting, a fishing smack anchored in the river opposite the camp, 
and the Colonel went on board. The Captain of the craft gave the 
Colonel a coil of rope to sit on, and in the course of conversation spoke 
of the rope, and was eloquent in its praise as the strongest and safest 
rope made. Colonel Harney bethought him that he needed some good 
rope, and made a bargain with the skipper for the coil. The coil of 
rope was loaded with the other stores and sent to Cape Florida, and it 
was only when the band w^as caught, that it was learned that the use 
of the rope was to cure piratical tendencies among adventurous Indians. 
It was a somewhat severe remedy, but was entirely effectual. 

Immediately on reaching Cape Florida, an expedition was fitted out 
for the Everglades, which was the stronghold of the piratical Indians. It 
was found impracticable to provide canoes for more than eight3^-eight 
men, or less than a company of infantry. Of these, fifty were dragoons 
and thirt3^-eight artiller3s light ordnance. The officers were, Colonel 
Harney in command, Captain Davidson, Lieutenant Ord, and Lieuten- 
ant Rankin, of artillery, Dr. Russell and Mr. Carter. 

Judge Carter, now residing at Fort Bridger, was suttler at Cape 
Florida at the time, but he was always a volunteer in every expedition 
that had a fight in it, and he was one of this party. 

On a dark, rain}^ night, the expedition set out. It was hazardous in 
the extreme, as its only hope la^' in surprising the Indians. The sur- 
prise proved to be a complete one. Chekikee was killed, the band 
were nearly all captured, and the Florida war closed. 

With the close of the war in Florida, Colonel Harney was ordered to 
Baton Rouge, where he remained some time. He was then ordered up 
the Washita River, and established Fort Washita in the Chickasaw 
nation. The force under his command consisted of two companies of 
the Second dragoons, dismounted rifles. 

From this time on until the opening of the Mexican war, the United 
States may be said to have been entirely at peace. The military genius, 
combined with the diplomatic skill of our regular army officers, had 
dispersed or conciliated the Indians, and the hardy frontiersmen went 
on gathering in the sheaves of civilization unmolested by the savage 
warriors. 

When Mexico declared war, it was seen that the contest was to be a 
severe one, and that the prize was rich in proportion to the toil and 
danger. Then the neglected sons of war felt that the^^ were to be again 
appreciated, and could exclaim with Bertram, 

"Discord gave the call, 
And made my trade the trade of all." 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 285 

At first Colonel Twiggs was appointed Brigadier General, and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Harney was promoted to the Colonelcy of the Second 
Dragoons. His first orders from General Taylor sent him to the com- 
mand of the forces protecting the Texas frontier, and he was thus kept 
out of the first of the brilliant and memorable engagements which were 
a part of the march of our army to the City of Mexico. The service in 
which he was engaged was one in which it seemed there was no mili- 
tary fame to be earned. The Mexicans got out of the way so nimbly 
that he had no chance to fight, and his position was almost unendurable 
to him ; knowing, as he did, that his regiment was marching on with the 
triumphant main army, and winning victories in which he had no share. 
Receiving information that the Mexicans were about to cross the Rio 
Grande, he moved down there with his force, but they got away with- 
out an engagement. He called a council of his officers, and proposed 
to go to Monterey, but none of the men supported him in his wish. 
In the meantime, General Wool ordered him to leave the Rio Grande 
and return to his former position at San Antonio. On his way back 
he was met by an order of arrest, General Wool having been falsely 
informed that Colonel Harney would not return. 

When promoted he had demanded orders to join his regiment, then 
at Monterey, and received orders accordingly. He then reported to 
General Wool at Buena Vista, and was immediately ordered to proceed 
to the mouth of the Rio Grande and report to General Scott. Soon 
after, he was ordered back to report to General Taylor and away from 
the headquarters of his regiment. This order, transmitted through 
General Worth, he refused to obey. 

Although remonstrated with, he adhered to this resolution, and was 
court-martialed for disobedience, and sentenced to suspension for six 
months and a reprimand. The sentence was, however, never executed 
as General Scott ordered him to duty. It was not supposed by any one 
that there would be any more fighting on General Taylor's line, and 
Colonel Harney consequently did not want to move in that direction, nor 
was he content to be taken away from the command of his own men. 

At Vera Cruz he was in command of his darling dragoons, and rode 
at their head with all the confidence and pride that belonged to the 
original conquerors of Mexico as they made their way to the palaces of 
her ancient kings. 

On the road from Vera Cruz to the beautiful town of Madeline, about 
nine miles distant, was a bridge distant from Vera Cruz about four miles. 
The bridge was defended by a strong fortification, which cut ofi' all 



286 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

communication between the American army and some French gardeners 
on the other side, who were anxious to furnish the Americans with vege- 
tables, of which they were sadly in need. General Scott ordered 
Colonel Harney to feel the strength of the enemy in the fordfication 
and then to retire, but on.no account to engage them. 

It was only after much solicitation that General Scott permitted this 
reconnoissance in force. Colonel Harney represented the sufferings of 
the army for the lack of vegetables ; that scurvy had already appeared, 
and that a delegation of French citizens had assured them that they 
could supply the army if communication was opened. At last, General 
Scott gave a reluctant order for him to feel the enemy, but not to fight. 
The latter part of the order he repeated several times to make it more 
impressive. 

Colonel Harney proceeded promptly to reconnoitre, and had learned 
the strength of the enemy and his position, and had drawn off his troops 
to the rear, when his valor got the better of his discretion, and he faced 
about and captured the works and pursued the enemy to the town. The 
advantage secured was the established communication between the 
American army and the French market gardeners, who were friendly 
to each other, and carried on a desirable trade afterward, our troops 
being able to buy articles of food that their health demanded. It also 
cut off the supplies of the city both from the gardens and the Spanish 
ships. The second day after this action the city capitulated. The next 
morning, Colonel Harney sought General Scott and made a clean breast 
of the whole affair. He described the initiatory movement, and then 
his chagrin as he rode back; "and then," said he, "I turned back and 
did what you yourself would have done, if you had been in my place." 

"Well, well," said General Scott, "we will let it pass." 

And so frankness saved him from the consequences of his soldierly 
impulsiveness. He had violated a plain order while in an enemy's 
country, and had made himself amenable to the extreme rigor of mili- 
tary law. A court martial could not have done otherwise than order 
him to be shot, and he himself could not have demurred to the sentence, 
yet here a breath between two old soldiers, each of whom appreciated 
the feelings of the other, swept away the fault as readily as the tear of 
the recording angel blotted out the record of a venial sin. 

While the army la}^ at Vera Cruz, General Scott received informa- 
tion that a strong force of the enemy was stationed at Antigua, and 
ordered Colonel Harney to proceed with a sufficient force and attack 
them. This he did, but the Mexicans managed to retire without an 
engagement. 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 287 

The leading incidents of the Mexican war, the movements of the 
troops, the disposition of the forces, are a part of our national archives, 
and have been woven into the consecutive descriptions which, more or 
less properly, present them under the name of histories. From Vera 
Cruz, the main army moved after its capitulation to Cerro Gordo, and 
closed its series of victories at the capital in the City of Mexico. The 
dragoons, from the greater celerity of movement of mounted men, were 
in front and hovering on the flank of the main army, resisting the 
attacks of detachments of the enemy and guarding against surprise. 



THE STORMING OF CERRO GORDO 

Was one of the most brilliant and desperate of that long line of feats 
of arms which belong to the history of the Mexican war. Of General 
Harney's part in it, the following brief extract is from Brooks' "History 
of the Mexican War : " 

Throughout the night there were 8,000 Mexicans lying upon and around the various 
heights, protected bj breast- works and fortifications, and further secured from direct 
assault by deep ravines and almost precipitous rocks, up whose steep sides they 
imagined a man would scarcely dare to climb. In addition to the force thus formidably 
posted, there was a reserve of 6,000 men, encamped upon the plain in the rear of Cerro 
Gordo, and close to the Jalapa road. 

Meanwhile Harney was organizing his storming party. This consisted of the Fourth 
infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Plympton, the rifles under Major Loring, four 
companies of the First artillery under Colonel Child, and six companies of the Third 
infantry under Captain Alexander. All of these, composing the forlorn hope, were regu- 
lars, picked men, daring and resolute. Many of them were veterans who had passed not 
unscathed through the desperate battles of Palo Alto and the Palm Ravine, and the still 
more deadly storm of Monterey. Now they were about to wrestle with a danger perhaps 
more imminent than any they had hitherto encountered. 

Onward they rushed, impelled by the double consciousness that the eyes of the General- 
in-Chief were upon them, and of the terrible consequences that would follow a disastrous 
issue. Harney led the way, conspicuous above all others by his full military uniform and 
his commanding stature. Waving his sword and calling on his men to follow, he rapidly 
ascended in full view of the enemy, while his cheering voice infused into the breasts of 
his command the same energy and dauntless enthusiasm which animated his own. It 
was a race for glorious renown wherein each strove to be foremost. The front ranks fell, 
but the survivors still pressed on, and still above the thunder of the war rose high, 
distinct and clear the voice of their intrepid leader. 

The key to the whole posidon was ours, captured under the eye of 
the General-in-Chief, by an assault that stands out as one of the most 
fiery and desperate onsets of modern war. 



288 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

On the arrival of the army before the city of Mexico, General Scott 
sent for Colonel Harney to advise as to the feasibility of making his 
attack by the causeways which formed the approaches to the city. 
Colonel Harney gave it as his opinion that though it was possible to 
attack in that manner, many men would fall by the way, and that as the 
most formidable resistance would remain to be overcome after the cause- 
ways were passed, some better means of attack should be devised if 
possible. From that time the subject was not absent from his mind ; 
plan after plan was formed, onl}- to be in turn rejected, until one day in 
conversation with one of his guides, who had been a former resident of 
the city, he asked him if he knew any better way of approach than by 
the causeways. The man's name was Jonathan Fitzwalter. He said 
that the city was supplied with water through an acqueduct, and that, 
through the protection the pillars afforded, a very desirable approach 
could be gained. Colonel Harney followed his description closely, and 
then was unable to suppress the ejaculation, "There is the place to 
attack the city ! " 

The suggestion was so apt and so practical that he hurried to General 
Scott with his discovery and his plan. It is enough for the vindication 
of the truth of history to say that it was adopted, and the original idea 
of Jonathan Fitzwalter, seized upon by Colonel Harney and conveyed 
to General Scott, was the suggestion out of which grew the final plan 
upon which the city of Mexico was captured. 

The fight offered no field for the services of cavalry, and General 
Scott asked him to take charge of the camp containing the prisoners and 
the supplies of the army, at a place called Musquak. During the attack 
he was chafing under his restraint, but had the satisfaction of hearing 
the whistle of the bullets in the last volleys, as he went in to make a 
report to General Scott. 

The capture of the city of Mexico was in effect, as it soon became in 
fact, the close of the war. General Scott sent for Colonel Harney and 
told him that he wanted an experienced officer to take a train to Vera 
Cruz, and that he had decided upon sending him. This service once 
performed he would be at liberty to spend some time at home. This 
train was composed almost entirely of Mexican wagons, carrying a large 
treasure. The guard numbered less than one to the wagon, and it was 
so long that when the last wagon left camp the first was going into the 
new camp. The train was about fifteen miles in length, that being the 
distance of an ordinary day's march. The train having reached Vera 
Cruz in safety. Colonel Harney embarked for home, and after spending 



GENERAL %VIEI.IAM S . HARNEY. 2S9 

;a time here, proceeded to Washington with dispatches, with which 
General Scott had intrusted him. 

After the declaration of peace, numbers of the American soldiers 
whose terms of enlistment had not expired, and who had married in 
Mexico, remained behind. Among this number was General Harney's 
•orderl}', a gallant young soldier, in whom he took a warm interest. 
Technically these men were deserters, yet General Harne}' took the 
ii'round that those who had fou^'ht brayely through the war deserved 
leniency, and he prevailed upon the President, Mr. Polk, to issue a 
general pardon to all who served faithfully up to the declaration of 
peace. 

In 1848, he was ordered to Austin, Texas, with the dragoons, and 
.staid there about four years, or until 1852. While there he organized 
.several expeditions to take the tield against hostile Indians, but from 
•one cause and another, they were knocked in the head by his being 
superseded by superior officers. 

General Persifer Smith, to whom he was warmly attached, came 
•down in command, and General Harney, who had asked few indul- 
gences during his long and arduous services, applied for leave of 
absence, to spend some time with his familjMn France. His family was 
already there, called abroad by solicitude for the health of one of his 
•children, and he expected, not unreasonably, that he might spend two 
years with them. His leave was granted, and he had joined his family, 
but after a luxurious ease of two months, was ordered back to take 
command of an expedition against the Indians. 

At that time a general Indian war was imminent, and General Harney 
was regarded as the man of men to bring it to a successful conclusion. 
On his arrival, the President, Mr. Pierce, sent for him and said, frankh' : 
" General Harney, you have done so much that I will not order you to 
the frontier, but I do wish you would assume the command and whip 
the Indians for us."" This to a professional soldier was more than a 
command. General Harney went at once to Leavenworth, which was 
the general depot, and made his movement against the Sioux. Moving 
from Leavenworth up towards the Platte, he came upon the Indian 
camp. The chief had previously sent him word that he would meet 
him to shake hands or fight. To fight w^as General Harney's mission, 
and he w^as convinced that any treaty, without first punishing them 
.severel}^ would be of no effect. Knowing that he was close upon 
their position, he reconnoitered their camp, ascending to a hill-top from 
which he could count the lodges. With a full knowledge of the posi- 
tion, he made the disposition of his forces for the following day. 



290 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



About one o'clock at night the cavahy moved and took up a position^ 
such that if the Indians fell back they would be in their rear. The 
next morning he met the chief, Little Thunder, and told him that as he 
(Harney) had the choice of shaking hands or lighting, he was deter- 
mined to fight. He then recited to the chief the outrages of which his 
people had been guilty, and told him he would give him one hour in 
which to harangue his warriors and make his dispositions for the battle. 
The Indians had fallen back where they were almost at the mercy of 
the cavalry, and the defeat had become a rout, when intelligence 
reached General Harney of an event that changed entirely the current 
of his thought. A Captain Howe, on his way to join him, was fired at 
from the mouth of a cave, and at once attacked there, killing the 
inmates indiscriminately. Of those who had taken refuge in the cave,, 
most were women and children, and of these but two little girls escaped.. 
It was not known at the time that any creature had been spared, but the 
girls were afterwards found. The effect of the report upon the old 
soldier, who was urging on the desperate encounter in the front, was 
sickeninp-. He at once withdrew his soldiers from the head of the 
ravine, and allowed the Indians to escape. Some seventy-eight braves- 
were killed, and the camp, with its equipage, and numbers of women 
and children, fell into his hands. The Indians had drawn their Hne to 
resist the attack on the open prairie, and, as General Harney asserts, 
had made the most civilized fight of any Indian engagement in which 
he ever participated. 

From this engagement he moved on to Fort Laramie. Although 
winter had set in, he thought it a proper season to prosecute an Indian 
campaign. 

On the march after leaving Laramie and following the foot of the 
Black Hills, the snow was one morning four inches deep, and the 
scouts were busily searching for an Indian trail, without, however, 
finding any. Operations for the season were therefore abandoned, and 
he went into winter quarters for the winter of 1855-6 at Fort Pierre, 
where he had ordered supplies to be sent. While at Fort Pierre, 
the Saute Sioux, a tribe of Indians on the Upper Mississippi that 
he had never encountered, sent him insolent and taundng messages, 
inviting him to come and fight them. They said they had heard so 
much of his fighting qualities that they were anxious to meet him, and 
test them. He wrote repeatedly to Washington for permission to 
proceed against them, but received no reply. The work of chastising 
them had to be done some years later. 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 29! 

Had not the instructions received from Washington been positive in 
forbidding him to cross the Mississippi river, he would have taken 
the responsibihty of proceeding against these hostile bands, and so 
saved the country a subsequent bloody war, and preserved the lives 
of many innocent people who were about to fall before the murderous 
spirit that had been evoked, and which was then growing in boldness. 

In the spring succeeding this tight, which has received the name of 
the battle of Ash Hollow, General Harney made a treat}- with the 
Sioux, some ten bands, or tribes, being represented. He had no 
special authority to make a treaty, yet he felt confident that his action 
would meet with approval. He explained his position to the chiefs and 
told them that he wished to treat with them subject to the approval of 
the Government at Washington. This they finally consented to, and 
terms were made. The}' agreed to be fast alhes of the whites, and 
General Harney gave the bands a military organization, appointing 
sub-chiefs from among the braves. Portions only of each band were 
selected for militaiy service in proportion to the strength of each. 
Those whom he made soldiers were to enter the United States service 
for warfare whenever called upon. In return they were to receive 
uniforms once a year, and when called into service were to receive pay, 
the chiefs as commissioned officers, the sub-chiefs (some of whom 
were appoined by General Harney himself), the pay of non-commis- 
sioned officers, and the Indians the same pay as private soldiers. 

This treaty met with unqualified approval in all quarters. It was 
confirmed by the United States Senate, and received the compliment 
of being refen-ed to by the Secretary of War as a "model treaty." 
Unfortunately for its permanence the Government was lax in fulfillino- 
the obligations which it had imposed upon itself. 

It is an important point, one that should not be overlooked, that General 
Harney fought Ash Hollow with an inadequate force. He had been 
promised two thousand men for the expedition against the Sioux. A new 
regiment under Sumner was slow in coming up, but he felt that the bat- 
tle should be fought at once. His effective force consisted of 800 men, 
including two companies of the dragoons under Cook. The battle of 
Ash Hollow was fought with only 600 men. The new regiment, slow 
in coming up, at last went back without authority, and left him in the 
heart of the hostile Indian country with his little force. 

In the mean time there was trouble again in Florida, and the Flori- 
dians wanted him there. President Pierce also desired him to go there, 
and had already ordered him to do so, when there came in a third party 



292 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



to claim his ser\'ices. The administration was desirous that Robert J. 
Walker should accept the governorship of Kansas. Mr. Walker was 
willing to go, but coupled his acceptance with the proviso that General 
Harney should command the troops there. 

General Harney had already reached Florida, when he was recalled 
to Washington. Upon a comparison of his views with those of the 
President, Mr. Pierce, it was found that they entirely agreed. Their 
view was. that though there were two hostile factions in Kansas, each 
desirous of a collision, firmness and steadiness could prevent it, and 
serve the best interests of both. The event proved the correctness of 
this view, as in a short time General Harney was able to inform the 
President that Kansas was quiet, and would remain so. Whatever there 
had been of danger was passed. Upon this he was ordered to Utah. 
This order was not distasteful, although he felt that his long service 
entitled him to an extended leave. He, however, got ready, and told 
Mr. Walker, who was furious at the thought of his leaving, and exerted 
his influence to have him retained, which was done. General Harnev 
remained in Kansas until Walker left there, and Albert Sidnev Johnson 
was sent in command of the Utah expedition. The next season General 
Harney was in Washington, and it was thought desirable to send him to 
Salt Lake, as the second in command under General Persifer Smith, 
who was such an invalid that he had to be carried on a litter. General 
Smith died at Fort Leavenworth. General Harney moved on toward 
Salt Lake, but heard on the route that the peace commission that had 
preceded him had made peace : and he secured an order from Washing- 
ton relieving him from a trip that could have no substantial fruits. 

From this trip he returned to St. Louis, hoping that now at last he 
would be permitted to go to France and spend some time with his 
family. 

It was during the administration of Mr. Buchanan that troubles arose 
with the Indians on the Pacific coast, and General Harney was ordered 
there to the command. No one fact better illustrates his Indian policy 
— the exact justice which he measured out to them, and the leniency 
with which he treated them when friendly — than the coadjutor he chose 
for that expedition. When the tribes committed outrages, he fought 
them with unexampled fury ; yet he fought to gain honorable peace and 
security for his countrymen, and not to carry on a wanton warfare. On 
this occasion he requested that Father De Smet might accompany him, 
in order to bring to bear the pacificatory influence of a divine, who, 
more than anv other, had endeared himself to the Indians of North 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 293 

America. The Secretary of War, upon General Harney's request, 
issued the order which made Father De Smet one of the expedition. 
The party left New York by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and 
arrived in San Francisco in due time. A few hours after arrival at the 
hotel in San Francisco, where they were resting, news came that Colo- 
nel Wright, after some skirmishing, had concluded peace. In the pre- 
liminary negotiations Colonel Clark had demanded the surrender of a 
number of Indians who had been killing whites, but the tribes were not 
disposed to give them up. Upon this. Major Keys, of the artiller3^ 
asked permission to speak to the chiefs, which was granted. The 
Major then went on to say to them : '^A great war chief is coming, 
and will soon be here. You had better take the terms now offered, as 
when he comes he will demand more." "His name," he continued, "is 
General Harne3^" They had heard of him, and the terror of his name, 
which had passed beyond the Rocky Mountains, was sufficient to lead 
them to conclude terms at once. 

Terms beino- concluded. General Harney went to Fort Vancouver, 
while Father De Smet went out and brought the Indians in to a friendh' 
talk. This was had, and, they all seeming to be peaceably disposed, 
the General established headquarters at Fort Vancouver, and opened 
up the country to settlement. The presence of the troops offered secu- 
rit}'. to settlers, and the finding of gold in considerable quantities brought 
on an excitement which settled up the country ver}' rapidh'. 

From Fort Vancouver he went up to the Strait of Juan De Fuca, lead- 
m<i;' into Pufjet Sound. He was aware that serious differences existed 
between the United States and Great Britain, as to the proper boundary 
line, and that the settlement of the question rested upon the finding of 
the true channel. In order to satisfy himself. General Harney, in a 
steamer, explored the strait, and, deciding that the claim of the 
United States was right, determined to maintain it. It afterward 
transpired that the British claim had its origin in the cupidity of 
the British Go\^ernor and his son-in-law, who coveted the island 
of San Juan for a sheep range. x\fter leaving Victoria, and while 
the steamer was passing the island. General Harney was informed 
that that was the territory, the eager desire to possess which had 
given rise to the trouble. He immediately ordered the Captain of 
the vessel to run into harbor there, when Mr. Hubbs, the United 
States Magistrate, came aboard and introduced himself. The magis- 
trate complained that the British refused to recognize his authority, 
and otherwise treated him with disrespect. General Harney informed 



294 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

him that his main object in coming there was to redress the grievances 
of citizens, and to cause the authorit}' of the United States to be 
respected and obeyed. He also told him, that in a short time a verj- 
different state of affairs would exist. The next day General Harney 
sent a picked force of one hundred men, under Captain George E. 
Pickett — the same whose division of the Confederate army afterward 
gained immortality by its bloody charge upon the heights at Gettys- 
burg — and took possession in the name of the United States. It is not 
doubted that the British commander was then preparing to do the same 
thing, but his tardiness was General Harne3^"s opportunity. He did not 
hesitate to seize and garrison the disputed island. The British com- 
mander next dav sent out a large force in small boats, from the fleet 
then lying in the harbor, apparently to take possession of the island. 
But Pickett and his picked men showed no signs of fear, and the boats, 
after performing some evolutions near shore, but without attempting to 
land, pulled back to the fleet. Had an attempt to land been made, 
there is no question that it would have been resisted wath force ; and 
thus a long and bloody war between the two most powerful nations of 
the earth might have been inaugurated. 

General Harnev returned to Fort Vancouver, and forwarded to the 
War Department a full statement of what had been done. It was made 
the subject of diplomatic correspondence between the two Governments, 
and there were many who thought they saw war as the inevitable result. 
It is humiliating to relate that the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan, who was 
then President, seriously contemplated the propriety of disavowing the 
step taken, and of giving up the possession of the island as a means of 
averting Avar. So great was the interest excited, and in some quarters 
the alarm, that General Scott was sent out to the Pacific coast with 
power to supersede General Harney, and disavow his act if deemed 
advisable. General Harney met him at the boat, and at once discovered 
that General Scott's plan of averting threatened war was to agree to a 
joint occupancv of the island b}' British and American forces. General 
Harney maintained that there was not the shadow of a reason for agree- 
ing to a joint occupancv. General Scott persisted, however, in urging 
it until Harnev, no longer able to control his feelings, broke out with 
the exclamation : 

"General Scott, I have maintained the honor of our countr}^ up to this 
time, but if vou agree to a joint occupancy I shall consider our countr}' 
disgraced I " 

"Yet," excitedly replied General Scott, "we both have our superiors, 
and must vield to instructions." 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 295 

Of course General Harney, after this declaration, could remonstrate 
;no further. He soon returned to Washington, where he did not fail to 
■express himself warmh'. The Southern States had now begun to secede, 
and in graver domestic dangers foreign complications had no hold upon 
'the popular ear. It is gratifying to add, that after the war between the 
States was ended, the claim to the Island of San Juan was submitted to 
ithe arbitration of the Emperor of Germany, who awarded it to the 
United States. Thus was triumphant!}' vindicated, after many years, 
the unerring judgment and unswerving patriotism of one of the bravest 
■officers of the arm}'. 

During the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's administration, a period 
full of stormy events. General Harney was stationed in Washington, 
•with orders to report to the President twice a day for consultation on 
the situation. He did not fail to give the President his views, who, 
after seeming to give them his assent, would next day reconsider his 
'determination. This vacillation greatly exasperated General Harney, 
who had become convinced that the President was listening to other 
counselors. Unable to stand it longer, he said to the President one 
day : "Some one has your ear who is neither a friend of the Union nor 
a friend of yours." It was ascertained afterward that this sinister influ- 
ence was exerted by the then Secretary of War. 

In the events which preceded our civil war, and which marked its 
inception. General Harney was stationed in Missouri. If there was a 
local pride in the breast of the man who had felt equally at home when 
stationed in Maine, ©r when lighting in the everglades of Florida ; who 
had borne his countiy'.s flag with distinction along every stretch of her 
frontier, from the head waters of our noble river to where the Rio 
-Grande flings its waters to the Gulf ; who had stood unflinchingly at the 
head of his dragoons when menaced by the combined cavalry of the 
Mexican army ; and who had participated in the final triumphant entr}' 
into the city of the Montezumas — if there was a spot which, more 
than another, claimed his aflections, it was that geographical divis- 
ion that bounded the home of his wife and his children. He had been 
'engaged for nearly half a century in protecting the feeble outposts of 
civilization, as thev moved westward o\er an empire that had been 
reclaimed from barbarism. Every instinct of his nature, of his pro- 
fessional teaching, and of his long experience, had taught him to look 
for enemies from without and not from within. He had seen Kansas 
pacified, in perilous times, bv the exercise of firmness and moderation. 
.He was ever readv to fiixht anv and all enemies of the Government 



296 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

whose uniform he so nobh' wore, but he was b}' no means disposed to- 
first make enemies for the satisfaction of fighting them afterward. 

He was convinced from the first that the wranghng of factions in 
Missouri, was caused b}- a poHtical ferment that would never develop 
into disloyalty unless met with irresolution and a teasing, tyrannous 
policy. There was on each side of him a party not numerous but 
active, anxious to stir up dissensions and to precipitate a conflict, for 
real or fancied benefit to themselves. And now between the bluft' old 
soldier and the schemers grew up differences that they were far from 
being disposed to reconcile. He believed their aggressive polic}' would 
be fatal ; they believed, or affected to believe, that his polic}- was 
unwise. 

General Harnev took the ground that there was no necessit}^ for firing 
a sin""le sfun in Missouri, and he was determined that none should be 
fired until the necessity did exist. 

On the loth of May, 1861, it was announced in the city papers that 
General Harney had been appointed to the command of the Department 
of the West, and on the succeeding day, the nth, he arrived in St. 
Louis, from Washington. 

The unfortunate scenes which attended the arrest of the State forces 
drilling at Camp Jackson, on the memorable loth, had filled the city 
with horror and dismay. Citizens who were terror-stricken were leaving 
the cit}' by every available route, or sending their families away from a 
danger they could neither measure nor comprehend. The appearance 
of General Harney reassured them as nothing else could. His splendid 
reputation as a soldier, his known firmness, and his stainless honor, 
were sufficient pledges that peace and order would be preserved. The 
next day he issued his proclamation announcing his resumption of the 
command, and his intention to maintain the peace. 

Unfortunately there were plenty of turbulent spirits to whom peace- 
was by no means pleasing. Either their occupation was discord or they 
hoped to gain an occupation by fomenting strife. Then again, of the 
two political parties, each furiously exasperated, each was anxious to 
be protected and yet wished that protection coupled with freedom to 
harrass and oppress the other. 

General Harney was the very man for the emergency. He gave 
protection, indiscriminately, to all, and at the same time curbed the 
spirit of license that was in danger of becoming prevalent. He had no 
reputation as a fighter to make ; that reputation was too well established 
on uncounted fields to lead him to look for laurels where they might 
rather be left unscathered. 



GENERAL WILEIAM S. HARNEV, 297 

The intelligent and the prudent gave him their support, when a cabal, 
whose plans he interrupted, sought to move him from their path through 
the exercise of influence at Washington. Messrs. James E. Yeatman 
and Hamilton R. Gamble, as a delegation representing those of our citi- 
zens most entitled to respect, went on to Washington to represent to 
the President, and those by whom he was advised, that General Harney 
was proceeding to the true solution of one of the most difficult problems 
of the da3^ 

On the 14th of May, General Harney's celebrated proclamation was- 
promulgated, breathing the spirit of peace, yet full of a determination tO' 
conquer a peace, if other means proved unavailing : 



HEADqt'ARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE WeST, 

Ma\ 



' the West, > 
ly 14, 1861. 5 



On my return to this Department I find, greatly to mv astonishment and mortification, 
a most extraordinary state of things existing in this State, deeply aftecting the stability of 
the Government of the United States, as well as the Government and other interests of" 
Missouri itself. As a citizen of Missouri, owing allegiance to the United States, and in 
common with you, I feel it my duty, as well as privilege, to extend a warning voice to my 
fellow-citizens against the common dangers around us, and appeal to your patriotism and 
sense of justice to exert all your moral power to avert them. 

It is with regret I feel it my duty to call your attention to the recent act of the General 
Assembly of Missouri, known as the Military Bill, which is the result no doubt of the 
temporary excitement that pervades the public mind. This bill cannot be regarded in any 
other light than as an indirect secession ordinance, ignoring even the forms resorted to by 
the other States. To this extent it is a nullity and cannot or ought not to be upheld or 
regarded by the citizens of Missouri. There are obligations and duties resting upon the 
people of Missouri, under the constitution and laws of the United States, which are para- 
mount, and which I trust you will carefully consider and weigh well before you allow 
yourselves to be carried out of the Union, under forin of yielding obedience to this 
military bill, which is clearly in violation of your duties as citizens of the United States. 
It must be apparent to every one who has taken a proper unbiased view of the subject, 
that whatever may be the determination of the unfortunate condition of things, in respect 
to the so-called Cotton States, Missouri must share the destiny of the Union. Her 
geograohical position, her soil productions, and in short, all her material interests point 
to this result. We cannot shut our eyes to this controlling fact. It is seen, and its force 
is felt, throughout the nation. So important is this regarded as to the great interests of 
the country, that I venture to express the opinion that the whole power of the Government 
of the United States, if necessary, will be exerted to maintain Missouri in her present 
position in the Union. I express to you in all sincerity, my own deliberate convictions,, 
without assuming to speak for the Government of the United States, whose authority, 
here and elsewhere, I shall at all times, and under all circumstances, endeavor faith- 
fully to uphold. I desire, above all things, most earnestly to invite my fellow-citizens 
dispassionately to consider their true interests, as well as their true relation to the 
Government under which we live, and to which we owe so much. 

In this connection I desire to direct your attention to one subject, which no doubt will 
be made the pretext for more or less popular excitement. I allude to the recent transac- 
tion at Camp Jackson, near St. Louis. It is not proper for me to coaiment upon the 



298 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

•official conduct of my predecessor in command of this Department, but it is right and 
proper for the people of Missouri to know that the main avenue of Camp Jackson recently 
under command of General Frost, had the name of Davis, and a principal street of the 
same camp, that of Beauregard, and that a body of men had been received into that 
camp, by its commander, which had been notoriously organized in the interests of the 
secessionists, the men openly wearing the dress and badge distinguishing the army ot 
the so-called Southern Confederacy. It is also a notorious fact that a quantity of arms 
had been received into the camp which were unlawfully taken from the United States 
Arsenal at Baton Rouge, and surreptitiously passed up the river in boxes marked marble 
Upon facts like these, and having in view what occurred at Liberty, the people can draw 
their own inferences, and it cannot be difficult for any one to arrive at a correct conclusion 
as to the ultimate purpose of that encampment. No Government in the world would be 
•entitled to respect, that would tolerate for a moment such openlv treasonable prepara- 
tions. 

It is simple justice, however, that I should state the fact that there were many good 
and loyal men in the camp, who were in no manner responsible for its treasonable 
character. 

Disclaiming, as I do, all desire or intention to interfere, in any way, with the preroga- 
tives of the State of Missouri, or with the functions of its Executive, or their authorities, 
vet I regard it as my plain path of duty to express to the people in respectful, but at the 
same time decided, language, that within the field and scope of my command and 
authority, the supreme law of the land must and shall be maintained, and no subterfuges, 
whether in the form of legislative acts, or otherwise, can be permitted to harrass or 
■oppress the good and law-abiding people of Missouri. I shall exert all my authority to 
protect their persons and property from violence of every kind, and I shall deem it my 
duty to suppress all unlawful combinations of men. whether formed under the pretext of 
military organization or otherwise. 

WM. S. HARNEY, 
Hr/o-aef/cr-Cjc/// U. S. Army, Co)iiiii(i)i(fi>/i^\ 

Meanwhile, General Harney addressed himself to the task of pacifica- 
tion, and one week later an agreement, which was no compromise on 
his part and no abatement of what the Government had a right to 
expect, was entered into between him and General Sterling Price, and 
formally published on the 21st of Ma}': 

St. Louis, May 21, 1S61. 

The undersigned, officers of the United States Government and of the Government of 
the State of Missouri, for the purpose of removing misapprehension and of allaying 
public excitement, deem it proper to declare publicly that they have this day had a 
personal interview in this city, in which it has been mutually understood, without the 
semblance of dissent on either part, that each of them has no other than a common 
•object, equally interesting and important to every citizen of Missouri — that of restoring 
peace and good order to the people of the State in subordination to the laws of the 
General and State Governments. 

It being thus understood, there seems no reason why every citizen should not confide 
in the proper officers of the General and State Governments to restore quiet, and, as 
among the best means of offering no counter-influences, we mutually recommend to all 
persons to respect each others' rights throughout the State, making no attempt to exercise 
•unauthorized powers, as it is the determination of the proper authorities to suppress all 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY, 



299 



iinlawful proceedings which can only disturb the public peace. General Price having, by 
commission, full authority over the militia of the State of Missouri, undertakes with the 
sanction of the Governor of the State, already declared, to direct the whole power of the 
State officers to maintaining order within the State among the people thereof. General 
Harney publicly declares that this object being assured, he can have no occasion, as he 
has no wish, to make military movements that might otherwise create excitement and 
jealousy, which he most earnestly desires to avoid. 

We, the undersigned, do therefore mutually enjoin upon the people of the State to 
attend to their civil business, of whatsoever sort it may be, and it is hoped that the 
unquiet elements which have threatened so seriously to disturb the public peace, may 
soon subside and be remembered only to be deplored. 

W. S. HARNEY, 

Brigadier- General Commanding. 
STERLING PRICE, 

Major- General Missouri State Guard. 

THE adjutant's ORDER. 

Headc^uarters Dep't of the West, ) 
St. Louis, May 18, 1861. \ 
Sir: — In reply to your letter of the 17th inst., to Brigadier-General Harney, Com- 
manding Department of the West, I am instructed to say that prisoners of war on parole 
are not restricted to any particular locality, unless a condition to that effect is especially 
set forth in the obligation they assume in giving the parole. No such condition was 
imposed upon the officers of General Frost's command, who gave their paroles at St. Louis 
Arsenal, May nth, 1861. 

I am sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. WILLIAMS, Assistant Adjutant General. 
To Colonel John S. Bowman, M. V. M., St. Louis, Mo. 

Those who were anxious for war in Missouri saw their opportunity 
slipping away from them. Harmony was being restored, and the parties 
to the covenant might well hope for the happiest effects. Yet the oppo- 
sition side held the winning card, and were onlv waiting for the time to 
make the play effective. 

In presenting the histor}- of these troubled times, many letters are 
produced from different parts of the State which speak of the persecu- 
tion of Union men. General Harnev was convinced that manv of these 
letters were written in St. Louis, or inspired by the cabal headed bv 
Blair, and that their object was to treat Missouri as a rebel State, when 
she was, in fact, a loyal State. An incident which occurred at this time 
deepened the conviction in General Harney's mind. He received a 
letter from St. Joseph, stating that ex-Governor Stewart and a number of 
the most respectable men in St. Joseph had been driven from their 
homes, and that unless soldiers were soon sent, they (the Union men) 
would all have to leave. General Harney called upon Colonel Blair 



IJOO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

\vith the open letter, and asked him if he knew the writer. Blair merely 
i^lanced at it without reading, and replied : * " 

"Oh, yes, he is perfectly reliable. You can believe anything he says.''" 

"Then," replied Harney, "I will write immediately to General Price, 
and ask him to attend to it.'" 

"Are you going to wait to hear from Price? " asked Blair quickly,, 
with a gesture of astonishment. 

"Certainly," replied Harney. 

Two or three days later, Harney received a copy of the St. Joseph 
JVezus, containing a letter written by ex-Governor Stewart, and a marked 
paragraph stated in substance: "Neither I nor an}' other Union man 
has been driven out of St. Joe." 

The crv of "persecution" was still kept up, and one day Harney 
significantly asked Blair how one man could successfully persecute two ? 
It was well known that the Union men throughout the State were in a 
strong majority — at the very least, two to one. 

On the 31st of May, General Harney received Special Order No. 135, 
relieving him from duty in the Department of the West, and granting 
him leave of absence until further orders. The order was dated on the 
1 6th, fifteen days before. It is now a matter of open history that Hon. 
Montgomery Blair wrote out the memorandum for the order on the day 
on which it was issued, and handed it to President Lincoln, and that it 
arrived here on the 20th, among dispatches for Colonel Francis P. Blair. 

When General Scott heard of the removal of Harne}', he at once 
expressed the conviction that it would cost the Government millions of 
treasure and thousands of lives. When it is remembered thatthe official 
relations of Generals Scott and Harney had for years been marked b}' 
asperities, it becomes evident that General Scott's conviction was a deep 
and eai-nest one, and the events which followed show his estimate to 
have been a moderate one. 

General Harne v's military career was closed. He felt that his great 
services had been treated with unbecoming levity, and from that time 
military aft'airs became with him but reminiscences of a glorious past. 
The patriot and the soldier, who had vindicated his manhood and the 
faith that was in .him on unnumbered fields, who had been the trusted 
counselor of presidents and of cabinets, who had stood aloof trom 
intrigue while combining the functions of the statesman with those of 
the soldier, the fearless denouncer of perfidy in high places, felt that 
younger men must now bear the responsibilities of action, since his 
judgment had been questioned upon a point on which he was most 



GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. 3OI 

•competent to decide. In the military annals of the country he had a 
name which detraction could not reach. He had achieved a reputation 
which no amount of envy or malice could possibh' tarnish. He might 
well be content. His record was secure, his motives could not be ques- 
tioned. He is still among us, the relic of a generation that was mindful 
of its honor as of its glory. 

A kindly, impetuous and intrepid spirit, Missouri has sheltered no 
nobler or more unseltish heart, no character more worthy of her lasting- 
honor. 



CHARLES GIBSON. 



)t\HE name of Charles Gibson seldom appears in the public jour- 
1 nals ; his photographs are never seen in the shop windows : yet 
few men in this city, during the past twenty-five years, have exer- 
cised greater influence over the material, legal and political history of 
the State. He was born in Central Virginia, west of Richmond, in the 
year 1825. His ancestors were among the early settlers of the high, 
mountainous regions in that portion of the State. His paternal grand- 
father was a native of Virginia, and his maternal grandfather came from 
the Carolinas. The latter, George Rutlege, died of a wound received in 
the Revolutionary war, under very peculiar circumstances. He was 
shot through and through the body, just above the stomach, but got 
apparently well of the wound. Man}^ years subsequently it broke out 
afresh ; he spat up some blood and spicular bones, and a small piece of 
the shirt he wore at the time he was shot, and finally died of the wound. 
His other grandfather was wounded in the head at the battle of Brandy- 
wine ; he also lived many years after, but never recovered. His father 
moved to Western Missouri in 1836, bringing with him a family of 
negroes, and was possessed- of small property, sufficient for a country 
gentleman. Mr. Gibson was well advanced in learning for a boy of 
eleven. The next five years, the most critical in life, he passed on the 
frontier, amid wild scenes, where there were no churches or schools. 
What books he came across he read and studied b}- himself ; and he- 
has always considered that the loss of the benefits of earl}^ tuition was, 
to a great extent, compensated by the independence of thought and 
originality engendered by self-instruction. He was, for a brief period, 
a student at the State University of Missouri. He had studied the rudi- 
ments of our language, without a teacher, but on examination at the 
University, he was declared perfect in all that he had gone over. His 
father was strongly opposed to his studying law, and he struck out early 
in life for himself. 

In 1843, he came to St. Louis, with but a few dollars in his pocket, 
and no friend — not even an acquaintance.. He met Edward Bates, by 



304 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

.accident, at the dinner table of a hotel. The next day he called on Mr. 
Bates and otiered his fjeneral letter of introduction, which that crentle- 
man refused to read, saying- that he had observed him at the table the 
.day before. Mr. Gibson also remarked that he had observed Mr. 
Bates at the table witliout knowing who he was. Mr. Bates expressed 
a desire to take up with him on his own hook, and thus a friendship 
was begun which lasted for twenty-five 3'ears — until the death of Mr. 
Bates. 

Mr. Gibson was, for a short time, the first librarian of the law library ; 
and, although seldom attending the meetings, he has always taken a 
deep interest in its prosperit^^ He studied law with Joseph Spaulding 
for three years ( although spending much of his time in the office of Mr. 
Bates), and, until the death of Mr. Spaulding, was on terms of the 
warmest firiendship with him, and afterward, with his family. He has 
always expressed the profoundest regard for the learning and upright- 
ness of his old tutor. During the time he was stud3'ing law, he applied 
himself to the acquisition of the French and German languages, and 
became sufficienth^ proficient in both of them to transact legal business 
in either tongue. He received only one quarter's instruction in French, 
.and had no instructor in German. Mr. Gibson has always taken a deep 
interest in national politics. He has never taken part in a city election, 
and never in a State election, unless it had some bearing on national 
.affairs. He made some speeches for Henry Clay, in 1844, before he 
was of age or entitled to vote ; and although he has never been a candi- 
date for office, he has taken a prominent part in every presidential 
election since that time. 

In 1848, he supported General Taylor. In 1852, he supported, and 
was an elector for. General Scott, of whom he was a great admirer. In 
1856, and afterwards, he was an old line Whig, and in that year exerted 
himself stenuoush^ to obtain for Edward Bates the nomination of that 
party for President. The inroads upon it, however, bv the ''Know 
Nothing" party were so great that the attempt failed. The leaders of 
the part}' earnestl}' desired that Mr. Bates and Mr. Gibson should join 
them, but they both declined to do so. 

In i860 he originated, and was the prime mover in, the proposition to 
nominate Edward Bates as the Republican candidate for the Presidencv 
in the National Convention which assembled at Chicago in May of that 
year. His object was not onh' to honor his old friend, but he believed, 
and expressed the opinion, that the nomination of a Southern man who 
^vas opposed to slavery% but who was conservative in all things and 

19 



CHARLES GIBSON. 305 

did not belong- to the Republican part3^ would tide over the political 
crisis which, he thought, otherwise was inevitable. In this opinion and 
movement, he was heartily seconded by Horace Greeley, and by all 
the Blairs, as well as by many other eminent Republicans. But for 
the split in the Democratic party, and private arrangements among 
some of the delegates from Pennsylvania and Indiana, after they had 
come to Chicago as "Bates" men, it is believed he would have received 
the nomination. Although his project failed, Mr. Bates, nevertheless, 
received a highly complimentary vote in the Convention, and afterward 
Mr. Gibson supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency. 

Early in the winter of i860, after the Claib. Jackson Legislature 
had called a convention for the purpose of taking the State out of the 
Union, (the political parties being disorganized, and this communit}" 
being about equally divided upon the great issues of the da}' — the 
Union people being without cohesion, or leadership,) Mr. Gibson pro- 
claimed himself an unconditional Union man. He was willing and 
anxious to give to the Southern people every right and every honor, and 
even to make them the leaders of the nation, so long as they remained 
in the Union. He was content to maintain intact the institution of 
slavery ; yet he declared that all his sectional feelings and affections for 
his own people were subordinate, in his mind and heart, to the unity of 
the American people. At this time he wrote an address, embodying 
these views, which he carried around to prominent citizens of all 
parties, who coincided with him. A mass meeting to nominate 
candidates for the State Convention was held, and Mr. Gibson was 
its acknowledged leader. His policy was sustained ; men of Union 
proclivities were nominated and elected, and the Convention, when 
assembled at Jefferson City, declared against Governor Jackson and 
secession, and kept Missouri in the Union. It was during this time 
that Hamilton R. Gamble, then residing in Pennsylvania, was induced, 
at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Gibson, to return to St. Louis for the 
purpose of taking part in public affairs. He was nominated for the Con- 
vention, elected, and afterward appointed Governor. Mr. Gibson was 
then called to Washington, at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Bates, 
who was then Attorney General, and who appointed him Assistant- 
Attorney General, and offered him any other office he might desire 
within his gift. Among several offices tendered him, he accepted that 
of SoHcitor of the Court of Claims, which office is now that of Solicitor 
Gneeral. 

During the next four vears he was recognized, at Washington, as the 



3o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

representative of Governor Gamble and his administration. He was 
imremitting in his endeavors to prevent the exercise of the severe meas- 
ures which manv Federal Generals seemed inclined to enforce, and in 
more than one instance — notably in that of General Curtis — caused their 
removal on account of the harsh manner in which they administered the 
affairs of this militar}' department. The movement, which was long and 
vigorously urged by many men powerful with the administration at 
Washington, to remove Mr. Gamble, and appoint a militar}- Governor 
for Missouri, was onh' thwarted b}- the active and untiring exertions of 
Mr. Gibson. 

After the death of Governor Gamble, he supported the administration 
of Governor Hall, but after the proclamation of President Lincoln, and 
when his administration assumed position in favor of what was known 
as the Radical party in this State, Mr. Gibson resigned the office of 
Solicitor General, and avowed himself a Democrat, but a Democrat 
strongly tinctured with Old Whig principles. As he openly quit the 
administration of Mr. Lincoln in the very zenith of its power, and while 
he enjoyed the personal esteem of Mr. Lincoln and that of most of his 
advisers (especially of Mr. Stanton), and became a Democrat when they 
were commonly known as "copperheads and traitors," his sincerity, at 
least, cannot be called in question. 

In 1864 he supported General McClellan for the Presidency, although 
he was satisfied that in the selection of a candidate for Vice-President, 
and in the failure to make a thoroughh' union platform, the Democratic 
Convention had fatally blundered. After the death of President Lincoln, 
he was amongst the first to welcome the conservative position taken b}' 
Andrew Johnson. For a long time the Democrats refused to accept Mr. 
Johnson as the exponent of their views, but Mr. Gibson considered it 
the duty of that party to accept the President as soon as he came over 
to their side. 

In 1868, he advocated the election of SeA^uour and Blair, and he 
attributed the defeat of those gentlemen to the bad manner in which the 
campaign was conducted. In 1870 he was among the first, if not the 
verv first, to advise the coalition of the Liberal Republicans (consisting 
mainly of German voters,) and Democrats, which resulted in the elec- 
tion of B. Gratz Brown to the gubernatorial chair b}^ a very large 
majority. In 1872 he was a member of the Democratic State Conven- 
tion, and by it was appointed a delegate at large to the National Demo- 
cratic Convention at Baltimore. Although he was warmly in favor of 
the election of Mr. Greeley, he, in conjunction with other delegates 



CHARLES GIBSON. 307 

from this State, considered his nomination by that Convention as unwise 
and impoHtic in the extreme. 

In 1861, Mr. Gibson retired from the regular practice of law and went 
to Washington, D. C. ; but he has always been, more or less, engaged 
in some important cases. From the time when he was first admitted to 
the bar until his retirement from regular practice, he received a full 
share of the litigation then going on, especially in matters pertaining to 
land titles. He drew up, and obtained the passage of the act creating 
the Land Court, and became at once one of the principal practitioners 
before that tribunal. He always contended that the administration of 
law should be divided out into special tribunals, in order to promote 
proficiency and convenience. Except in his younger days, he did not 
aim at any oratorical efitbrts, but the whole bar of the State will, no 
doubt, unite in saying that when he became interested to an extent to 
call forth his full power, his oratory was as brilliant as his abilities were 
great. Many years ago, while in full practice, he was sole counsel in a 
case wherein the King of Prussia, now the Emperor of Germany, was 
plaintift\ It took a turn that caused some feeling on the part of the 
Prussian Government, and Mr. Gibson's management of it was so satis- 
factory that the Emperor presented him with two magnificent vases, 
made under a special order in council, each adorned with exquisite 
enamel paintings, and bearing an inscription very flattering to the recip- 
ient. The order also conveyed to him the royal thanks for the satisfac- 
tory manner in which he conducted the case. 

As a business man, he has been ver}^ successful, and has amassed a 
handsome fortune, which has not come to him by mere luck. Some of 
the finest enterprises in this city have been organized and perfected by 
him. The north half of the square where the Southern Hotel now 
stands, twenty years ago was a lumber yard. The title to the land 
was involved in the most intricate and difficult litigfation, and had been 
so for a great many years. Mr. Gibson took hold of the matter, 
relieved the title of the clouds that rested upon it, drew a charter for a 
hotel, giving it its present name, organized a compan}- to build the hotel 
under the charter, sold it the land on the most liberal terms, and for 
less than he was offered for it at the time by another party, and sub- 
scribed for $10,000 worth of stock in the concern. Onl}^ $75,000 could 
be raised at that time, and the question was presented as to the way to 
build a hotel, to cost $600,000, with only $75,000. Mr. Gibson con- 
cluded that if the latter sum was invested in the ground it would build 
the hotel ; and so it did. x\fter that sum had been expended, all the 



3o8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

old stockholders surrendered their stock, although it was then worth' 
par, and another bonus of nearly $100,000 was raised, and the whole 
given to Colonel George Knapp and others, on condition that they 
would complete the building, which they did, alter many severe trials 
and a very considerable loss to themselves. 

Although avowedly aristocratic in his sentiments, Mr. Gibson has 
always taken a deep interest in those matters tending to promote the 
welfare and happiness of the people ; to elevate their tastes and improve 
their habits ; and thus he has alwa3^s been especially zealous in the advo- 
cacy of the purchase and improvement of extensive parks and other 
public grounds for the people. He built his residence opposite Lafay- 
ette Park twenty-five years ago, and has resided there ever since. He 
had no sooner moved there than he called his neighbors together, and 
brought about an agreement between them and the city for the improve- 
ment of that park, which was then a naked prairie, with scarcely a tree 
or shrub upon it. The title to part of the land was in dispute, and half 
of the north front was fenced in, and in possession of Patrick M. Dillon. 
The title to this part of the park he settled amicably, through Mr. Bar- 
ton Bates, then representing the Dillon estate. At that time he endeav- 
ored to extend the park eastward to the Hospital, and subsequently 
westward to California avenue, but his efforts did not succeed. In 
1853, he drew up and caused an act to be passed, which was submitted 
to a vote of the people, to open Jefferson avenue two hundred feet wide 
from St. Louis Place to the "Wild Hunter," and Grand avenue three 
hundred feet wide, from the river on the north to the river on the south. 
It is greatly to be regretted that these magnificent projects, which then 
wolud have cost but a trifle, were defeated b}^ making the question a 
partisan contest between the Whigs and Democrats. In 1868, he also 
projected a park of one thousand acres just east of the present Forest; 
Park. This was also defeated by a small majority, on the ground that 
Tower Grove and the little inside parks were enough for the people of 
this great city. Subsequently Mr. Lefiingwell proposed a park of three- 
thousand acres, but the plan was considered too large, and therefore 
failed. Mr. Gibson then reduced the size of Mr. Letfingweirs park, 
confining it on the north to Olive street, and south nearly to Chouteau 
avenue, thus making it about half the size of the original project. In 
1872, he drew the act establishing Forest Park, which act was assailed 
by some of the property owners as unconstitutional. As the billl in that 
form was the onl}^ one that could then be passed, there was nothing left 
but to fight it out in the courts, and after a short litigation the act was. 



CHARLES GIBSON 



309 



■declared unconstitutional, and the park project was considered dead. 
Mr. Gibson, however, revived the project, and, calling around him its 
friends, another act was passed at the succeeding Legislature, which, 
after running the gauntlet of all courts, was held to be valid. In all 
this litigation, his professional services were rendered gratuitously. 
Admitting that the establishment of the great park is due to the com- 
bined efforts of many public-spirited citizens, whose services should 
ever be gratefully remembered, yet it is doing them no wrong to say that 
but for the legal abilit3% cool, business sense, and untiring persistence of 
Mr. Gibson, its acquisition would not now be an established fact. 

For many years Mr. Gibson was a commissioner for, and always took 
an active interest in, Lafayette Park. He is warmly devoted to the fine 
arts. He superintended the erection of the Benton statue, and secured 
also a copy of Houdon's statue of Washington, both of which are 
erected in Lafayette Park. He was mainly instrumental also in procur- 
ing the colossal bronze statue of Edward Bates, now in the city, but not 
at this present writing, erected. He is the president of the Bates Mon- 
ument Association. 

Some years ago he organized a new gas compan}-, and, obtaining the 
co-operation of Henry Y. Attrill, a capitalist of Baltimore, and a man of 
great ability, experience and enterprise, erected the present Laclede Gas 
Works, in the northern part of the city, at a cost of $1,500,000. The 
old company claimed a monopoly of the whole cit3% and, if its claim 
were valid, it had the legal right to enjoin and make worthless the prop- 
erty of the new company. The expenditure of this immense sum was 
made under the advice of Mr. Gibson, as to the legal right of the old 
company, and gave evidence, on the part of those capitalists, of uncom- 
mon reliance upon his legal acumen and judgment, a reliance w^hich the 
result fully justified. 

Mr. Gibson married, in 185 1, Miss Virginia, daughter of Archibald 

Gamble, one of the oldest and most respected of our citizens. He has 

a large family, and has had the singular good fortune to lose none. His 

habits are peculiarly domestic, and his marital relations are singularly 

:felicitous. 



HENRY SHEFFIE GEYER. 



(^ a')MONG the distinguished men who adorned the early history of 
^i\ Missouri, and to whom it is mainly due that its institutions are 
what they are, no one deserves a higher place than Henry 
Sheffie Geyer. This very able man was born in Frederick County, 
Maryland, on the 9th of December, 1790. His parents were of German 
extraction ; in fact his father was born a Prussian subject. Of his 
childhood and youth we only know that his education was superin- 
tended by Daniel Sheffie, of Virginia, his maternal uncle. Mr. Sheffie 
was a man of marked ability, and was noted both as a lawyer and as a 
member of Congress in those early days. In his office his nephew 
studied his profession. He had hardly commenced to practice, when 
the war of 1812, with Great Britain, diverted his attention to other 
pursuits. He entered the army and served with credit until the close 
of hostilities ; when he returned to civil life, and almost immediately 
came to Missouri, reaching St. Louis on the loth of iVugust, in the 
3^ear 1815. 

At that time Missouri was a Territory, and St. Louis a village of three 
streets and a few hundred inhabitants. It was the seat of government 
of the Territory and the depot of the Indian traders, and thus was the 
scene of important business. Mr. Geyer devoted himself to the practice 
of his profession, and speedily established himself in the front rank. 
His education as a lawyer was thorough ; his abilities were of the 
highest order ; his learning and demeanor such as to command respect 
and conciliate regard. In every department of the law he was a 
recognized leader, and the place he then won he retained to the end of 
his life. 

The laws of the Territory were, of course, in a very rudimentary 
condition. Missouri had been a Spanish province, and the title to real 
estate depended largelv on the Spanish regulations and the civil law. 
The imperfect, or inchoate, titles granted by the Spanish crown had 
been examined and adjusted by the authority of the United States. A 
Board of Commissioners had been appointed in 1805-7 ^^r the confirma- 



312 BIOGRAPHICALSKETCHES. 

tion of claims to land. An act of Congress of a very comprehensive 
nature had been passed in 1812 ; the Recorder of Land Titles had 
been clothed with many of the powers of the old Board. The acts of 
1814 and 1816 followed, and some of the most subtle and intricate 
questions of the law of real property were involved in the settlement 
of the land titles of the Territory. Seeing these things, Mr. Geyer 
rendered an important service to the State and his own profession by 
carefully compiling a digest of the laws which governed the acquisition 
and tenure of property, and protected life in Missouri. To these he 
added the treaty of cession by which the Territory was acquired, and 
the regulations of the Spanish officials respecting grants of land. This 
useful work was known as "Ge3^er's Digest." The copyright was 
secured in December, 181 7. The work was printed at the "Missouri 
Gazette office," by Joseph Charless, in 1818. 

In 1820, a convention was called for the purpose of framing a consti- 
tution for the State of Missouri. Of this body Mr. Geyer does not 
seem to have been a member ; but he was the speaker of the first House 
of Representatives that was elected under it, in 1820-' 21. What is 
known as the ''Missouri Question," at that day agitated the country, and 
delayed for a time the formal admission of the State into the Union. 
It was not until August, 182 1, that this was accomplished, though the 
Constitution was adopted in July of the previous year. In 1822—3, and 
again in 1824—5, Mr. Geyer was a member from St. Louis county, and 
speaker of the House of Representatives. 

It had been provided in the Constitution that in 1825, and at the end 
of ever}' ten years thereafter, the laws of Missouri should be revised 
and codified. The session of the General Assembly meeting at those 
periods, has always been known in our history as the "revising session." 
The work of codification was first performed in 1825, and what was 
then done was the ground-work of the bod}' of law which has since pre- 
vailed in Missouri. 

The code of 1825 is understood to have been, in a large measure, the 
work of Mr. Geyer. Indeed, it is not claiming too much to call him, 
in every sense, its author. He possessed unusual qualifications for the 
task. No man excelled him in the framing of a law. He embraced and 
classified every incident of the subject ; gave to each part its proper 
place and due subordination ; omitted no detail ; avoided all obscurity 
and prolixity, and embodied the legislative will in expressions so unam- 
biguous as scarcely to need judicial interpretation for the ascertainment 
of their meaning. The code of 1825 was an inestimable possession for 



H E N R Y S II E F F I E (} E Y E R . 3 I 3 

Missouri, It furnished her people with a code of just laws, accessible 
to e\"ery inquirer, and admirably calculated to promote the public wel- 
fare. For, among other things for which the people of this State have 
cause to be thankful, is the fact that the dishonesty of stay laws, valua- 
tion or appraisement laws, and other discreditable contrivances by which 
so many of her sister States, then and now, have discriminated in favor 
of the "debtor class," never obtained a footing in Missouri. This, of 
course, was not the work of one man. The praise of it must be shared 
among many. But none of them is entitled to a larger share of grati- 
tude and credit for this important service than Mr. Geyer ; and the 
proud commercial position which St. Louis has always held, even when 
her numbers were not one-hundredth of her present population, and 
the high character of Missouri merchants all over the State, from the 
earliest period of our history, may be fairly said to be due in great part 
to the honest code of laws of w^hich Mr. Geyer was the author. 

In the political struggle of 1824, Mr. Geyer adhered to the views of 
Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay. He distrusted General Jackson as a military 
chieftain, and still more did he dislike him for w^hat he considered his 
disregard of law. In the eyes of Mr. Ge3'er, an^^thing, on the part of 
an official, approaching to a usurpation of powder or a transcending of 
the path fixed for him by the law, was an offense so grave that he had 
for it no pardon, no indulgence. In his view, the veiy least penalt}' 
which such conduct deserved was exclusion from all future public ser- 
vice. In this he was perfectly consistent. When his personal friend, 
Mr. Clay, became, as he latterly did, a latitudinarian in pohtics, Mr. 
Geyer, retired as he was from public life, did not feel under the neces- 
sity of pronouncing against him, but he did not follow him, and it may 
truly be said that for man}- years he was not in full harmony with an}- 
of the political parties. This was not due to sullenness or soreheaded- 
ness. He felt, no doubt, that he had a capacity for public service, and 
would have rejoiced to distinguish himself in that honorable field ; but 
he saw that in Missouri there was no probability that his services would 
be called for; that the politics of the State were overwhelmingh' Jack- 
sonian, and he accepted the situation cheerfully. He devoted himself 
entirely to his profession, and of that profession he was the acknowl- 
edged head. No injustice is done, it is beheved, to any of the Bar of 
Missouri by this claim of pre-eminence for Mr. Geyer, for he possessed 
a variety and extent of accomplishments as a lawyer which vindicated 
his leadership. There was no department of the profession in which 
he did not shine. He was a most learned real estate lawyer. Scarcel}' 



SH 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



a single important question respecting land titles in Missouri was settled' 
without his aid. In commercial law he was perfecth' at home. In 
chancery causes, involving the greatest complexity of detail, he pos- 
sessed the facility, as if by intuition, of unraveling the maze, and 
showing that upon the determination of a few distinct propositions the- 
issue depended. In the management of a jury trial, his rare tact and 
knowledge of mankind gave him great advantages. He was celebrated 
for the skill with which he examined a witness, and in dealing with 
circumstantial testimony he was a master. He was a safe and accurate 
counselor, and a most skillful tactician. In the trial of a cause he 
marshalled his own evidence with skill ; vigilantly excluded all which 
was erroneously offered b}^ his adversary ; and in dealing with the entire 
mass of it he never had (in the opinion of Edward Bates, a most com- 
petent judge,) an equal at the Bar of Missouri. It sometimes happened 
that his opponent objected to testimony introduced bv him as irrelevant. 
When this occurred, 'his retaliation was apt to be severe. Often the 
evidence proposed was admissible for two purposes : one, comparativeh- 
unimportant, but obvious ; the other, not obvious, but very important. 
In such cases, Mr. Geyer would indicate, in answer to the objection of 
irrelevanc}", the comparative!}^ unimportant object, but when the evidence 
was in, he startled his adversary by the revelation of the ulterior design. 
He showed that what had been supposed to be cobwebs, were hooks of 
steel, and he wove a chain of argument b}- their aid which it was impos- 
sible to break. In this manner he often extracted from hostile witnesses 
the means of overthrowing the cause they favored. Mr. Ge^'er enjoyed 
a victor}^ of this kind exceedingly. It may be, perhaps, said that all 
other lawyers who win such triumphs, appreciate them highlv, and that 
there was nothing peculiar in his enjoyment of them. This is certainly 
true, but the pleasure he derived from such a result was not due to 
gratified vanity alone. He had the keenest sense of humor, and he 
seldom failed to enliven, with some unexpected pleasantry, a trial which 
in other hands would have been merely dr}' and methodical, and which, 
however, was no merely irrelevant display. From the time the jurv was 
sworn, to the giving of the verdict, Mr. Geyer devoted all his eflbrts 
to the winning of the cause ; and whatever did not contribute to this end 
was rejected as unreasonable. He was often brilliant ; but, to borrow 
the admirable illustration so often quoted, it was not bv "the emptv fire- 
works got up for show, so much as the sparks emitted from the work- 
ing engine," that his forensic efforts were illustrated. 

It is felt that any attempt to give instances of Mr. Geyer' s peculiar 



HENRY SHEFFIE GEYER. 



6^:> 



mode of dealing with the incidents of a trial at nisi fri lis will be unsatis- 
factoiy. His vigilance, his dexterit3s and his perfect presence of mind, 
are indescribable. If an example be given, the narrative may fail of its 
effect, by reason of the imperfection of the narrator, and the impression 
may even be then created that Mr. Geyer was, after all, only a triton 
among minnows. For this reason, only two anecdotes, one of what 
occurred during the trial of an important land suit, and the other of a 
conversation on political topics, will be produced here. Those who 
remember Mr. Geyer will be apt to consider the instances ver}' badl}' 
selected. The contrary is not asserted ; they are given as specimens of 
his manner. It happens that they were nearly concurrent in point of 
time, and perhaps dwell, for that reason, in the memory of the writer of 
this imperfect memoir. 

During a notable canvass of some activity and bitterness, Mr. Gever,. 
with several lawyers of both parties, was returning by steamboat from 
the Supreme Court, then held at Jefferson City. The conversation 
turned on the approaching election, and Mr. Geyer, who was very fond 
of conversing with young men, rallied a member of the Democratic 
party, respecting what he called the sad necessity of his voting for its 
nominee. It happened that the Whigs, in that canvass, instead of nom- 
inating one of their own party, supported an anti-Benton Democrat, and 
Mr. Geyer' s interlocutor at once instituted a comparison between the 
candidates, attempting to show that the anti-Benton Democrat was 
something short of perfection. To this Mr. Geyer drylv replied that he 

thought so too, adding that he did not propose to vote for Mr. , 

as his interlocutor had supposed. He would, he said, vote for neither of 
the candidates. He did not think either fit to be Governor of Missouri. 
It was replied, rather flippantly, that as both were Democrats, it was not 
to be expected that Mr. Ge^^er, a Whig, could see anv good in them. 
"On the contrar}-," said Mr. Geyer, 'T see some good in each ; and 
oddly enough, such good qualities as one has, the other is very deficient 
in." Some one remarked that, by combining the two, something verv 
choice might be obtained. "'Why, yes;" said Mr. Geyer, "if I could 
give to an ideal man all the good qualities of Mr. A, without any of 
his failings, and all the good qualities of Mr. B, without any of his 
di^awbacks, then, I think the resulting character would make a very 
respectable steamboat clerk ! " 

The other anecdote relates to an occurrence in court. A verv 
important litigation was pending. Hundreds of suits had been brought, 
and one of them was selected for trial. The plaintiffs were represented 



3l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

b}- six able counsel of the St. Louis Bar, and with them was associated 
a gentleman w^ho had been upon the bench and professor in a law 
school in a neighboring State. This gentleman had only been in St. 
Louis a short time, and he had permitted himself to speak rather 
unbecomingly of his estimate of the abilities of the leaders of the St. 
Louis Bar. He had made no secret of his opinion that Geyer, Gamble 
and Spalding were overrated men, likely to be estimated at their true 
value as soon as they encountered genuine ability and learning. Of 
course these expressions became known, and there can be no doubt 
that Mr. Geyer, at least, determined to take the first good opportunity 
of correcting the opinion on which they were founded. All three of 
these strong men — Ge3-er, Gamble and Spalding — were retained for 
the defense of the causes alluded to. The plaintiffs desired to avoid 
meeting a defense which they knew the defendants had in reserve, and 
with this view,' instead of putting all their title deeds in evidence, 
they only gave a selection from them, and rested the case. Thereupon 
Mr. Geyer, for the defendants, moved the court to declare that the 
plaintiffs had shown no title to the premises in controversy. This gave 
rise to an argument, and it soon appeared that the court was with the 
defendants. Seeing this, the plaintiffs asked leave to put in further 
evidence. With great gravity, Mr. Geyer objected to this. He said 
that such indulgence was often and properly given to youth and inex- 
perience, but would be entirely out of place when accorded to a 
veteran, accomphshed in all the niceties of practice, and able not only 
to encounter, but to instruct other men. He proceeded to lavish on 
his antagonist every expression of praise, and to make his accomplish- 
ments a reason why his prayer should be denied. His antagonist 
became very uneasy. Mr. Geyer' s sarcasm was so delicate that it was 
scarcely perceived by its object, and his gravity was so unbroken that 
every one in the court room ( the trial was of great interest and a large 
number of juniors was present), though enjo3ang to the utmost the 
revenge which their leader was taking, remained outw^ardly composed. 
Mr. Geyer closed his remarks with the statement that it was impossible 
to attribute to mistake the predicament in which the plaintiffs had 
placed themselves, it unist be the result of calculation and design ; if 
they had confidence in their position, let them justify that confidence by 
an appeal to the Supreme Court ; but if they had indeed no such confi- 
dence, it followed that they had been trying an experiment with the 
court in a reckless and disrespectful manner that entitled them to no 
favor. The distressed counsel for plaintiffs rose in evident disturbance. 



HENRY SMEFFIE GEYER. 31/ 

all ot the confidence, almost amounting to insolence, of his bearing was; 
gone. He made a begging address to the court. He urged that the 
case on trial had been prepared at great expense, that many witnesses 
were in attendance, etc., and he hoped that the court "would not turn 
them out of court upo}i a technicality ."^ "Good Heavens," said Mr. 
Geyer in a stage whisper to his colleagues, "our objection is that he 
has no title, and he calls that a technicality ! '' There was a burst 
of laughter throughout the court room, in which every one but the 
distinguished counsel for plaintitfs heartily joined, and he dropped into 
his seat, unable to say another word. The court granted the motion to 
reopen the case, and the plaintiffs were beaten on the merits. This was 
what Mr. Geyer wished. He desired to grapple with the full strength 
of the opposing claims, but he could not resist the temptation to admin- 
ister to this rather arrogant professor a rebuke for his under-estimate of 
the St. Louis Bar. 

In manner, Mr. Geyer was dignified and courteous. It was seldom 
that an}' one ventured to attack him — those who did so had little reason 
to applaud their discretion. He was prompt to resent any approach to 
an insult ; and on one occasion at least, in his early life, he complied 
with the customs of the day, and adjusted on the field a personal contro- 
versy. At the first fire, he discharged his pistol in the air, but his 
antagonist insisted upon a second shot, on which Mr. Geyer gave him a 
wound which, for the time, disabled him, though it was fortunately 
transient in its effects. The circumstance would not have been alluded 
to, except for the purpose of adding, that a perfect reconciliation was 
the consequence ; and the writer has heard Mr. Geyer, without any 
allusions to their former relations, speak of the gentleman who then 
confronted him as not only a man of high honor, but as one for whom 
he cherished a warm regard. 

It would not be misspent time, if space permitted, to attempt a charac- 
terization of [Mr. Geyer as a lawyer ; to speak of the rapidity, cer- 
tainty, and sure-footedness of the practitioner ; the learning, depth and 
resources of the jurist ; the tact and eloquence of the advocate, and the 
calm, discriminating, judicial nature of the counsel he gave. He shone 
in every department of his profession. To do justice to him, would 
require greater space than can be awarded to him on this occasion, and 
the result would be interesting rather to the lawyer than to the general 
reader. It must suffice to say, that he was the peer of the ablest man 
he encountered here, or at Washington City. There is no theatre on 
which he would not have been a conspicuous character. The circum- 



3l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Stance of his having devoted himself so entirely to his profession, and 
of his being in a great measure excluded by his political views from 
public life, will prevent him from being known so widely as many far 
inferior men. 

It will perhaps be remembered that upon the death of General 
Taylor, Mr. Fillmore re-organized the Cabinet and nominated Edward 
Bates, of Missouri, as Secretary of War. The Senate promptly con- 
firmed the nomination, but Mr. Bates positively declined the honor. 
As this was the first appointment to the Cabinet ever made of any one 
resident west of the Mississippi, the declination surprised not only 
Mr. Fillmore, but the general public, as well. Mr. Bates was then 
offered the Interior Department, but this he declined also. The latter 
position was then tendered to Mr. Geyer, and Mr. Fillmore, not wishing 
to have the highest offices in his gift seem to go a begging, took the 
precaution, before announcing it, of sending a special messenger to Mr. 
Geyer, at St. Louis, to ascertain if he would accept. He peremptorily 
declined the appointment, and none but a few of his most intimate 
friends ever knew that it had been offered him. He gave as his reason 
for refusal, that his habits and tastes were incompatible with the station, 
remarking that if accepted by him, "he would be the most unpopular 
man in Washington in less than three weeks." It is painful to add the 
comment, that no such considerations operate upon the statesmen of 
to-day. 

In 1849, certain resolutions, known in our history as "the Jackson 
resolutions,*' were passed by the General Assembl}- of Missouri. They 
were so called because introduced by Claiborne F.Jackson, a prominent 
Democrat. Mr. Benton considered these resolutions to have originated 
in hostility to him. They contained instructions which he determined 
not to obe}^ ; and appealed from them to the people of Missouri. It was 
thought b}' manv that he might have appealed successfully, if he had 
first resigned, or if he had conducted the contest with a little more 
suavity. However this may be, a very embittered feeling arose against 
him. Disaffected Democrats, styling themselves Anti-Benton men, 
united, in the general election in 1850, with Whigs, and the result was 
a General Assembly in which the Whigs and Anti-Benton men had a 
majority over the Benton Democrats. By a combination between the 
two first, Mr. Geyer was elected to succeed Mr. Benton in the Senate. 
His term commenced March 4, 185 1. It cannot be said that Mr. Geyer 
added to his reputation by this term of office. He could never be other- 
wise than respectable in any body of which he was a member, but he 



HENRY SHEFFIEGEYER. 319 

was not a warm, unqualified advocate of an}' set of opinions, then 
represented by as man}- as twent}- men in either house of Congress. 
Apparently he did not consider it obligator}^ to express views which had 
become then, as they are in a still more striking degree now, very old- 
fashioned. There can be no doubt that, if Mr. Geyer had gone to the 
Senate in his fortieth, instead of his sixtieth, year, the mark he made 
there would have been very different. As it was, his friends could only 
regret that much of the fire of early manhood was dimmed, and that he 
was content now to play a comparatively undistinguished part. He 
argued man}- cases of great importance in the Supreme Court, during 
the six years which followed his election, and here he showed all his 
peculiar power : but it is believed that he delivered no argument, and 
made no appeal, to the Senate of the United States upon any of the 
questions which in that period engaged the attention of Congress. 

When his term as Senator had expired, he returned to St. Louis, and 
without an}' diminution of power or success, again took part in the trial 
of important causes in the courts held at St. Louis. He was fully 
occupied professionally, for his services were recognized as being so 
valuable that the party which secured them was esteemed to have gained 
a rare advantage. His health seemed vigorous, his carriage was 
upright, his eye was keen, and his whole bearing prevented any of his 
friends from supposing that he felt the weight of years ; and no anxiety 
was felt when, early in March 1859, '^^ important cause was called for 
trial, and absence was accounted for by the suggestion of a slight indis- 
position. He expected to be able to try it, however, in a few days. 
The Court postponed the cause for that purpose ; but presently the 
whole city was startled and shocked by the intelligence that he had 
ceased to live. His symptoms had grown suddenly alarming, but before 
the alarm could be communicated to the public, the blow had fallen. 

He was one of those who elevated and adorned the profession of the 
law. He was irreproachable in private life. He never stooped to 
unworthy artifices to gain popularity, but he had none of the moroseness, 
or coldness, which is insensible to popular applause. So far as this 
tribute could be gained b}- the performance of his duty, he welcomed 
and enjoyed it, but he prized it only on these terms. 

His services to his profession, and to the people of his State, were of 
the most solid character : but he did not seek to make the Bar, or the 
community, acknowledge its obligation to him ; and it may very well be, 
that many enjoy the benefit of his labors and example, without recogniz- 
ing the source to which the}' are indebted. Those who can remember 



320 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

him, either as leading their own cause or heading the opposition to it. 
Avill retain, as long as memory endures, the clear impression of his 
strength, dexterity, and inexhaustible resources. Not many survive 
who had this advantage, and they will feel as sensibly as does the 
writer of this imperfect notice, how entirely inadequate it is to convey 
an idea of what manner of man Henry Sheffie Geyer really was. 



^4$.^ 




% "^ W' 



^Og'tTAH-Ritcliie. 



^^^ '^^W^ 



JAMES B. EADS, C.E., LL.D. 



IT has been well said that the victories gained by force of intellect 
for the promotion of human happiness in the arts of peace, are 
greater than the victories gained by the armed phalanx in the field 
of blood. Energy and mind employed in such a direction are more 
worthy of our admiration than the skill and genius of conquerors. Time 
was when statues were erected in honor of tyrants, and triumphal pro- 
cessions accorded to human butchers. We honor not now the oppres- 
sors and destroyers of mankind : but those who are the friends and 
benefactors of the race. Few men who devote themselves to the pro- 
motion of vast public enterprises, which, in the nature of things, are 
but little understood by those who have not considered them from the 
stand-point of the projector, or from the scientific calculations of the 
engineer, are appreciated or rewarded by the generation with which 
they are contemporary. To this almost general rule the subject of this 
sketch is an exception, and St. Louis has done well to honor one who 
has shown himself to be the friend and benefactor of the people. 

James B. Eads was born in Lawrenceburg, a small town in Southern 
Indiana, on the Ohio river, May 23, 1820. His parents were in com- 
fortable circumstances, and, appreciating the advantages of education, 
gave him in the schools of Cincinnati and Louisville the foundation for 
that education upon which the efforts and application of his youth and 
manhood have built such a noble superstruction. 

The sphere of his future usefulness was early indicated by his fond- 
ness for machinery, and in the enthusiasm and delight which he brought 
to the investigation of mechanical contrivances. This was the sport of 
his youth, as it has been the serious business of his maturity. 

It is related of him, that, having embarked on an Ohio river steam- 
boat when only nine years old, the interest which he exhibited in the 
engine attracted the attention of the engineer, who was pleased to 
explain the machine, and the operation of its parts, to a student so 
keenl}^ attentive and at the same time so intelligent. This lesson was 
one which the boy never forgot, as we find that four years later he 



322 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



was enabled to construct a working steam engine in miniature, without 
assistance. 

The advent of the boy in the city of St. Louis, in September 1833, 
seemed to give Httle promise of the future that he should be enabled to 
win, and at the same time illustrates the vicissitudes from which few 
lives are entirely free. The steamboat on which his father had em- 
barked with his family to find a home in the W^st, was burned, and 
they were landed here destitute. 

Unable at the moment to secure such employment as his ability would 
warrant or his taste select, and the necessity for doing something being- 
imperative, he sold apples from a basket on the street, and by this 
means supported himself and assisted his mother. The boy of thirteen 
here put in practice, unconsciously perhaps, the characteristic principle 
of his life — action, immediate and unhesitating. No repinings over 
losses have ever been allowed to cloud his judgment, but the recupera- 
tive effort has followed at once upon the path which has, in most cases, 
found the substantial reward that flows from success. 

Having obtained, soon after, a situation in a mercantile house, with 
which he remained several years, and having free access, during that 
time, to the excellent library of the senior partner, Mr. Barrett Williams, 
he used the opportunity to study mechanics, machinery, and civil engi- 
neering. He next passed two years as an officer on one of our Missis- 
sippi steamboats, and there began that knowledge of the great river 
which prepared him for the important services which he was afterward 
to render. 

In 1842 he formed a copartnership with Case & Nelson, boat-builders, 
for the purpose of recovering steamboats and their cargoes which had 
been sunk or wrecked in the river. 

In 1845, Mr. Eads married Miss Martha N., daughter of Patrick M. 
Dillon, of St. Louis ; and desiring to leave the river, sold his interest in 
the diving bells and started a factory for making glassware. To him 
belongs the credit of making the first glassware west of the Mississippi. 
The manufacture of glass did not, however, prove profitable in St. Louis, 
and Mr. Eads, after two years spent in it, returned to his old business of 
recovering boats and property wrecked in the river. In ten years this 
business had been so successful that the property of this firm was valued 
at nearly half a million dollars. 

This success is largely attributable to the fertility of the expedients 
which Mr. Eads brought to the labor, which in each case was the 
subject of varying conditions. The facilities with which the company 



JAMES B. EADS, C.E., LL.D. 323 

Started out would now be regarded as ridiculously inadequate, but the 
careful application of such means as could be commanded, in the end 
wrought out results that appear strikingly disproportionate. 

In the winter of 1855-6, Mr. Eads made a formal proposition to 
Congress to keep open, for a term of years, the Western rivers, b}- 
removing all obstructions, and keeping the channels free. A bill, 
embodying his proposal, was passed in the House by a large majorit}-, 
but by the influence and management of Jeff. Davis, then Secretar}^ of 
War, and Judah P. Benjamin, it was defeated in the Senate. 

On account of ill-health, he retired from business in 1857, having 
prepared himself, however, b}' a life of activity, energy and success, for 
the more important part he was destined to take in the affairs of the 
country in the construction of the Western iron-clads. 

When, during the first year of the war, the Federal Government 
decided upon equipping a fleet of novel construction, for service upon 
the Mississippi and its tributaries, Mr. Eads received the contract for 
building the first seven of these boats. The contract was signed on the 
7th of August, 1861, and specified that the vessels were to be ready for 
their crews and armaments in sixty-five days. Habituated, as we now 
are, to the contemplation of the achievements of the war, and the 
singular examples of energy which it often developed, the building of 
seven iron-clad steamers in sixty-five days, when the wood of which thev 
were to be constructed was yet standing in the forest, and the rollers 
were not yet fashioned for shaping the iron for their armor — is an 
undertaking, the possibility of which many able men might gravely 
question. Yet it was done. On the 12th of October 1861, the first 
United States iron-clad, with her boilers and engines on board, was 
launched at Carondelet (now within the limits of the cit}^ of St. Louis,) 
in forty-five days from the laying of the keel. She was named the 
"St. Louis," by Admiral Foote, in honor of the city. When the fleet 
was transferred from the war department to the navy, the name was 
changed to "Baron De Kalb," there being at that time a vessel commis- 
sioned in the navy called the St. Louis. This vessel had the honor to 
be in more engagements than any other on the waters of the Western 
rivers. In ten days after the "De Kalb," the "Carondelet" was launched, 
and the "Cincinnati," "Louisville," "Mound City," "Cairo" and "Pitts- 
burgh " followed in rapid succession. 

An eighth vessel, larger, more powerful, and superior in every 
respect, was also undertaken before the hulls of the first seven had 
fairly assumed shape. 



324 



B I O (i R A P H I C A I. SKETCHES 



It is to be regretted, however, that the promptness and energy of the 
man who thus created an iron na\y on the Mississippi, was not met on 
the part of the Government by an equal degree of faithfulness in per- 
forming its part of the contract. On one pretext after another, the 
stipulated payments were delayed by the War Department, until the 
default assumed such magnitude that nothing but the assistance ren- 
dered by patriotic and confiding friends enabled the contractor, after 
exhausting his own liberal means, to complete the fleet. 

It was mainlv bv the aid of these vessels, at the time his own 
property, that the brilliant capture of Forts Henry and Donelson was 
accomplished ; and the ever-memorable midnight passage of Island 
No. lo, which compelled the surrender of the redoubtable stronghold, 
was achieved, several months later, by the Pittsburgh and Carondelet, 
two of the vessels furnished under the same contract, and at that time 
unpaid for. 

Without following in detail the labors of Mr. Eads in the construction 
of vessels during the war, it is enough to say that he created a navy, 
especially adapted for service on our Western waters, and differing 
entirel}^ from anything that had before existed. Whatever its merits, it 
is sufficient to sav that it accomplished its purpose, and that its builder 
was the man who made possible its brilliant achievements. 

In Mav 1868, the Mound Citv Life Insurance Company (now the 
St. Louis Life ) was organized, and Mr. Eads was elected president. 
He continued to hold the position until his departure for Europe, for 
the third time, on business for the Bridge Company, but owing to the 
demand upon his time as chief engineer of the bridge, he resigned 
in 1872. 

Later, howev^er, when the St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Company 
was in diflicultv, and about to be forced into the hands of a receiver, by 
which great loss would have fallen upon a vast number of widows and 
orphans, Mr. Eads again assumed the presidency of the Mound City, 
and to his keen foresight and accurate judgment is largely due the suc- 
cess of the movement which eventuated in aflbrding protection and 
security to the thousands interested in the St. Louis Mutual. The 
capital of the Mound City was largeh' increased to cover any possible 
deficiencv in the other company, and the two were ultimateh' consoli- 
dated under the name of the St. Louis Life. Life insurance ranks 
among the exact sciences, being founded on mathematical principles as 
well established as anv of the data of civil engineering, and to his 
management of the St. Louis Life Mr. Eads brings a mathematical 



JAMES B . EADS , C . E . , LL . I) . 325 

mind, trained to subject all questions to the crucial test of the logic of 
tigures. His well-balanced mind, kindly nature and untiring energy 
admirably fit him for controlling the destinies of that great corporation 
whose assets foot up over seven million dollars. 

As a recognition of eminence in his profession, the Missouri State 
University two years ago conferred upon Mr. Eads the degree of LL. D. 
He was twice elected president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, 
and has held positions of honor and trust in several of the most import- 
ant corporations in the State, among which we mav name the National 
Bank of the State of Missouri, the St. Louis, Kansas City & North- 
ern Railway, the St. Charles Bridge Company, the Third National 
Bank, etc. 

The magnificent bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, is a 
notable landmark in the engineering progress of the age in which we 
live. It not only exemplifies that mechanical and engineering skill 
which belongs to this quarter of a century, but it is an imperishable 
proof of the audacity of the man whose splendid genius conceived, and 
whose enterprising liberality consummated it. Its history has been told 
again and again, but will be heard with undiminished interest until nar- 
ratives of great achievements cease to attract the attention of man. 

James B. Eads was the chief engineer of the Illinois and St. Louis 
Bridge. He was its head and front — its originator and creator. What- 
ever its value, and it is already known to be greater than was estimated, 
its construction is mainly due to the unflagging zeal, tireless energy and 
marvelous perception of this modest and unassuming man. Linked 
with his, it is true, are the names of others, who performed their part 
of the work nobly. But his was the genius which conceived the plan 
upon a principle untried in the science of engineering. And he was 
the organizer who drew around him associates, and inspired them with 
something of his own enthusiasm to erect a structure which shall serve 
the uses of millions of people to the end of time. 

But the successful solution of new problems in engineering is not the 
onlv triumph in connection with the bridge, of which Mr. Eads has a 
right to be proud. His financial abilities are acknowledged to be of the 
highest order. To him belongs the chief credit of raising the half 
score of millions required to build the bridge and tunnel. 

The bridge was formally thrown open to travel on the 4th of July 
1874. ^^^ event was duly celebrated. There was an immense pro- 
cession extending fifteen miles in lengtli, and in it every trade and 
calling of the city was represented. The stores were closed, and all 



326 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

business was suspended. Several distinguished statesmen, including" 
the Governors of Illinois and Missouri, spoke to a vast audience, and 
every incident of the day demonstrated that as long as the arches of 
tempered steel which stretch their graceful web over the noblest river 
that serves the purposes of man, shall endure, so long shall the name of 
James B. Eads be remembered and honored. 

Even before the completion of this great work, Mr. Eads had 
maturely considered and proposed a plan for obtaining, at the mouth of 
the Mississippi River, sufficient depth of water and width of channel to 
permit the unobstructed passage of the largest ocean vessels. Opera- 
tions upon and beneath the surface of that river — lifting wrecks from 
its bottom, building war vessels to open, and keep open, its communi- 
cations, and, finally, building that bridge, which renders it no longer an 
obstacle to the transverse trade of the countr}- — have filled the active 
period of his life, and peculiarly fitted him for the execution of the plan 
he has conceived. That plan is the construction, at one of the passes, 
of jetties, which, in Mr. Eads' language, "are simply dikes or levees 
under zvoter, and are intended to act as banks to the river, to prevent 
its expanding and diffusing itself as it enters the sea. It is a notable 
fact that where the banks of a river extend boldl}' out into the sea, no 
bar is formed at the entrance. It is where the banks, or fauces terrce 
vjaws of earth) are absent, as is the case in delta-forming rivers, that 
the bar is an invariable feature. The bar results from the difliision of 
the stream as it spreads out fan-like in entering the sea. The diftusion 
of the river being the cause, the remedy manifestly lies in contracting 
it, or in preventing the diffusion.'" 

It is not essential to a correct understanding of the jetty plan that a 
detailed description of the phenomena of the Mississippi River, or the 
geography of its mouth, should be given here. It will be presumed 
that every intelligent reader knows that the river finds its way into the 
Gulf of Mexico b}- three outlets, or passes, and that at the mouth of 
each of them is a bar, formed of the comminated sand, clay and earth 
which the stream has brought down in suspension, and deposited where 
the current loses its momentum. Inasmuch as these bars have greath' 
hindered navigation, and practically restricted it to vessels of the lightest 
draft, the problem of how to remove them, and keeping them from 
forming again, has puzzled the minds of scientific men and Congress- 
men ever since the commerce of the South and West has been of suffi- 
cient importance to command national consideration. 

Congress took up the subject of improving these outlets in 1837, ^^'^ 



JAMES B. EADS, C.E., LL.D, 327 

in 1838 elaborate surve3'S were made under Colonel Talcott, but led to 
discussion rather than to any efficient action. In 1861 the able and 
comprehensive exposition of the "Physics and Hydraulics of the Missis- 
sippi," by Humphreys and Abbott, was published by the Government, 
with beautiful letter-press, and profuse illustrations. It was the first 
work of the kind which ever appeared in regard to any river in the 
Western Hemisphere, and contained a vast number of interesting facts, 
the treatment of which in the text was, in general, highly creditable to 
the dual authorship. But the compilers, although officers in the Corps 
of Engineers, United States Army, of which the first named, General 
Humphreys, is now^ the chief, contented themselves with discussing 
theories, without compressing them into absolute recommendations, and 
did not positively indicate any particular mode of improvement at the 
mouth of the river as, in their opinion, so likely to be successful as to 
merit preference above all others. They gave the results of consulta- 
tions of a board of engineers, composed of Major Chase and Captains 
Barnard and Beauregard, of the army, and Captain Latimer of the 
nav}', but did not speciall}' indorse an}^ one of them. This board, 
known as the Board of 1852, had recommended : 

1. That the process of stirring up the bottom by suitable machinery 
should be tried. 

2. If this failed, dredging by buckets should be tried. 

3. If both these failed, that jetties should be constructed at the 
Southwest Pass, to be extended annually into the Gulf as experience 
should show to be necessary. 

4. Should it then be needed, the lateral outlets should be closed. 

5. Finally, should all these fail, a ship canal might be resorted to. 
Dredging, both by stirring and by buckets, was tried at an early day; 

and in 1856 "one insecure jetty of a single row of pile planks about a 
mile long" — as Humphreys and Abbott tell us — was built by Craig & 
Rightor at Southwest Pass, but was not completed, although it had, 
even in its incomplete state, an appreciable efiect on the depth of water 
near its lower end. But dredging was the main reliance, and for man}- 
3'ears past has been carried on at a heavy annual cost, but without 
results of value. In the meantime, ocean vessels have been greath' 
increased in size and draft, so that the navigation at the delta is rela- 
tively worse than when the improvement of the river's outlet was first 
undertaken. Ships of a size to carry cheapest cannot get in or out, and 
our enlarged commerce, in its way to and from the sea, finds that its 
difficulties increase with its growth. This fact has co-operated with 



328 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

railroad development to relatively diminish the river commerce, which 
is less now, in proportion to the population and business of the region 
drained by the river, than it was twenty years ago. The attainment of 
an enlarged outlet to the gulf has, therefore, an importance not equaled 
by that of any other measure relating to cheap transportation ; and the 
people of the great valley have been unanimous in demanding efficient 
and permanent works, because they know that the river is the natural 
and only adequate competitor with the east and west railroads, and that 
its proper improvement is the best statute to regulate them. 

But the question, as to which of the various proposed plans for the 
improvement of the river was the proper one, was difficult of satisfactory 
solution. Each method had its advocates, until, in the course of time, 
the ship canal had outstripped all others, and had gained the support of 
a majority of the Government Board of Engineers. The press and the 
people of the Lower Mississippi Valley, especially of the city of New 
Orleans, indorsed it with almost entire unanimity, and the Senators and 
Representatives from that section pertinaciously pressed it upon the 
favor of Congress. The appropriate committees of the two bodies had 
heard arguments in behalf of its adoption, and the House Committee 
actually had reported a bill unanimously for the construction of the Fort 
St. Philip canal, when Mr. Eads came forward, single-handed and 
alone, to tight for his plan of the jetties, and wage war upon the 
mistaken recommendation of the United States Engineers. He insisted 
that a ship canal was not the proper remedy ; and in February 1874 
made a formal proposal to Congress to create, by the use of jetties, a 
deep and permanent channel, receiving pa}^ only as the work should 
prove successful. Congress having refused to pass the canal bill, and 
being not then prepared to adopt the jetty system, he suggested the 
appointment of a select mixed commission of civil and military engineers,, 
to consider and decide all questions relating to the mouth of the river. 
The act of June 23, 1874, pi'ovided for the Commission, and upon the 
adjournment it was appointed by the President. It soon after went to 
Europe to personally inspect the jetty system as applied to man}- of the 
great rivers there. 

Mr. Eads also went for the same purpose", but not with the Commis- 
sion. He was accompanied only b}' Mr. James Andrews, who, having 
been his contractor on most of his engineering works, had unbounded 
faith in his scheme. The}^ and the Commission returned to the United 
States in the month of November. The Commission reported to Con- 
gress, when it assembled in December, unanimously except one member. 



JAINIES B . EADS , C .E . , LL . D. 329 

in favor of the jetties. Their report, however, unfortunately recom- 
mended their apphcation to the South instead of the Southwest Pass, as 
Mr. Eads desired. But it decided the vexed question between the canal 
and the jetties, and on March 3, 1875, Congress passed the bill, fully 
intrusting the improvement to the entire judgment of Mr. Eads, and 
thus ended the dispute forever in his favor. 

By its terms, a depth of twenty feet of water is to be given to the 
South Pass within two years. He is then to press forward and increase 
the depth, within a specified time, to thirty feet. Upon the completion 
of the work, he and his company will receive from the Government the 
sum of five million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The first 
installment of half a million is to be paid when he has obtained a chan- 
nel two hundred feet wide and twent}' feet deep, and the last w^hen the 
channel has been made seven hundred feet wide and thirty feet deep. 
After obtaining a depth of thirty feet, he is to receive one hundred 
thousand dollars per annum for twenty years for maintaining this depth. 

As an illustration of the energy and ability of Mr. Eads, it is stated 
that in less than two months after the passage of the act, the building 
of the jetties was let to Messrs. James Andrews & Co., and preparations 
for the work were in active progress. While thus engaged, he was 
tendered, and accepted, the honor of a complimentary banquet b}^ the 
leading citizens of St. Louis. It was given at the Southern Hotel, on 
the 23d of March, and was presided over by the Mayor of the city. 
From his eloquent response to the principal toast of the evening, the 
following extract is selected as a fitting close to this sketch : 

If the profession of an engineer were not based upon exact science, I might tremble for 
the result in view of the immensity of the interests which are dependent upon my success. 
But every atom that moves onward in the river, from the moment it leaves its home 
amid crystal springs or mountain snows, throughout the 1,500 leagues of its devious 
pathway, until it is finally lost in the vast waters of the Gulf, is controlled by laws as fixed 
and certain as those which direct the majestic march of the heavenly spheres. Every 
phenomenon and apparent eccentricity of the river, its scouring and depositing action, its 
curving banks, the formation of the bars at its mouth, the efl:ect of the waves and tides of 
the sea upon its currents and deposits, are controlled by laws as immutable as the Creator, 
and the engineer needs only to be assured that he does not ignore the existence of any of 
these laws, to feel positively certain of the result he aims at. 

I therefore undertake the work with a faith based upon the ever-constant ordinances of 
God Himself; and so certain as He will spare my life and faculties for two years rnore, I 
will give to the Mississippi river, through His grace and by the application of His laws, a 
deep, open, safe and permanent outlet to the sea. 

In private life, Mr. Eads is one of the most estimable of men. He is 
easily approached, and is kind, courteous and afiable to all who come 



330 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

in contact with him. His physical constitution, intellectual activities, 
temperaments, habits — all would seem to mark him out as a man des- 
tined to close his career, as he has long conducted it, in the ver}- midst 
of labors on works of incalculable value to the country, apparently 
destined to materially influence, if not to totally revolutionize the com- 
mercial relations of three continents — the two Americas and Europe. 



TRUSTEN POLK. 



/ I \HE name of Trusten Polk has, for a period of many years^ 
1 been honorably and prominently associated with the cit}^ of St. 
Louis and with the histor}^ of the State. He was born in Sussex 
County, Delaw^are, May 29, 181 1. His father, WiUiam M. Polk, was a 
well-to-do farmer, a man of fine attainments, and of great popularit}' 
and influence. His mother was a sister of Peter F. Cansey, one of an 
honored and influential family in the same State. His ancestors ma}- be 
traced far back in the past, and some of them took an active part in the 
war of the Revolution. One branch of the ancestral familv, on the 
maternal side, moved at an earl}' period to the Carolinas, and some 
members of the family on the paternal side moved to, and settled in. 
Kentucky and Tennessee. 

The position his parents occupied in life induced them to give their 
son all the advantages of a good education, and they designed from the 
first that he should follow a professional life. His boyhood days were 
passed on the farm, and in attending the common schools of the day in 
his neighborhood ; when, having acquired the rudiments of a good 
English education, he was qualified to enter an academy at Cam- 
bridge, on the eastern shore of Maryland; and here, with still greater 
advantages, he fitted himself by a good start to enter college. From 
here he was sent to Yale College, at New Haven, where he entered the 
freshman class, and, after a diligent course of study, he graduated at 
that renowned institution in the year 1831, when only twent}' years of 
age. He distinguished himself in college b}' his studious habits, his 
quickness to learn, and the talents he displayed as a graceful writer, 
debater, and speaker of more than ordinary powers for one so young. 
He graduated high in his class, and the society to which he belonged 
conferred man}- honors upon him during his collegiate course. After he 
was graduated he returned to his native State, and commenced the 
study of law in the office of James Rogers, who was at that time Attor- 
ney-General of the State, and after a thorough course of study here he 
continued his legal studies in the law school of Yale College, where he 
remained two years. 



332 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Having concluded his legal studies, Mr. Polk returned to his home, 
and was for a short time engaged in learning the practical duties of his 
profession before he was admitted to practice. He soon found that the 
legal business of his little State was prett}^ much monopolized by a few 
older and more experienced lawyers of long practice and extensive 
acquaintance, and that a young lawyer, no matter what might be his 
abilities, would have to spend the earh' years of his professional life in 
comparative idleness before he could hope for anything like a proper 
remuneration for his services. To a young man of ambitious hopes 
and an aspiring disposition, these prospects were by no means as favor- 
able as he could desire. With a spirit of independence and self-reliance 
he determined to remove West, where there was a broader field in 
which to work, and where a young man of his strongly-marked individ- 
uality and many accomplishments could hardly fail to attract attention 
and become prominent. He came to Missouri and settled in St. Louis 
in 1835, a year cheerful with bright prospects lor the growth and pros- 
perity' of the cit3^ At that time the Bar of St. Louis ranked among its 
members some of the first legal minds in the country — men of warm 
and generous impulses, and who recognized the essential brotherhood 
that ought to exist among members of the profession. Among these 
gentlemen Mr. Polk soon made many warm personal friends. His 
thorough education and mental training in the classics, previous to com- 
mencing the study of law, gave him many and superior advantages over 
those who had been deprived of a suitable preparatory education. His 
polished eloquence and the suavity of his manner soon made him emi- 
nent at the bar, and he was destined to become one of its most brilliant 
lights. 

December 26, 1837, two years after his arrival in St. Louis, Mr. Polk 
was united in marriage to Miss Ehzabeth W. Skinner, the second 
daughter of Curtis and Anne Skinner, who, for many ^^ears, had been 
residents of this State, having removed here from New Windsor, Con- 
necticut. For a number of years afterward he pursued an extensive 
and lucrative practice, until his labors began to tell upon his constitution 
and threaten a premature decline. On this account he retired for a 
time from the arduovis duties of his profession, in order that his health 
might be restored. During this interval of relaxation, which was in a 
part of the years 1844 and 1845, he spent one winter in Louisiana and 
the island of Cuba, and during the ensuing summer, he traveled in the 
New England States and Canada. During his absence, and entirely 
unknown to him, he was elected b}' the citizens of St. Louis County a 



TRUST EN POI. K. 333 

member of the State Convention, which met at Jefferson City to revise 
the Constitution. At this election, which was held in August 1845, 
Mr. Polk and Miron Leslie were the onl}' Democrats elected from this 
county — the remaining four being Native Americans. In this honorable 
capacity Mr. Polk did efficient service. 

It was not to be supposed, however, that a man of Mr. Polk's ability 
and popularity should not receive from the public some demonstration 
of its confidence by an appointment to some high official position. In 
1848 he was a member of the Democratic Convention which nominated 
Judge Austin A. King for Congress ; and in 1856 the Democratic part}' 
nominated Mr. Polk as their candidate for Governor. It was a time of 
great political excitement, for the Know-Nothing part}' and the Free- 
Soil party had their strongest champions in the field, and each was 
exerting itself to its utmost to obtain supremacy. In this warm contest 
Mr. Polk was elected to the chief magistracy of the State, and in due 
time was invested with all the honors of his new appointment. He had 
exercised his new prerogatives but a few weeks before he received still 
further evidence of the estimation in which he was held by the public, 
by receiving from the Legislature of the State the appointment of 
United States Senator, having for his colleague the lamented James S. 
Green. In possession, at one time, of the two highest official positions 
which it was in the power of his State to bestow, it became necessary 
that he should resign one of them, and he gave up the gubernatorial 
chair. 

He remained in the Senate until the year 1861. Upon the breaking 
out of the war he resigned his seat, and shortly after his return to St. 
Louis removed to the vicinity of New Madrid, in this State, where he 
remained for some time. His fortunes were cast with the Southern 
Confederacy, and during the war, in 1864, he was taken prisoner, and 
confined on Johnson's Island. He remained a prisoner until some time 
in the latter part of that year, w^hen he was exchanged, and still adhered 
to the fortunes of the Confederacy. During the war he held the posi- 
tion of presiding Military Judge of the Department of Mississippi. The 
war was a serious blow, to his private fortune. His property here was 
seized, and his books and" many valuables either destroyed or greatly 
damaged. Subsequently his property was restored. Upon the close of 
the war he returned to St. Louis, and resumed the practice of his pro- 
fession, which he has since followed successfully. In 1848 he was 
one of the electors of Cass and Butler. Mr. Polk has often declined 
nominations for pubhc office. He has been several times urged to 



534 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



become a candidate for Mayor of St. Louis, and for member of the 
lower house of Congress, but, desiring to devote himself to his pro- 
fession exclusively, he has invariably declined. 

In his profession Mr. Polk deservedl}' holds a place in the first rank. 
He is characterized by his honorable and dignified bearing, his urbanity 
of manner, and perfect freedom from vituperation in debate. His elo- 
quence is of the Chesterfield style — at once impressive, conciliatory, 
but always free from the gusty excitement of passion. He is, and 
always has been, a Democrat from principle, and is warmly attached to 
that party, although now he does not mingle actively in politics. He 
was a warm and earnest advocate of the common school system when 
in its incipiency, and has been for many years a consistent member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. He has an interesting family of four 
daughters, having lost an only son. 



JAMES H. BRITTON, 



ATIRGINIA has been the mother, not only of Presidents, but of a 
host of active, earnest, intelHgent business and professional men, 
man}' of whom are now scattered throughout the States and Ter- 
ritories of the West and South. James H. Britton, the subject of this 
brief sketch, is one of this class, and was born in Shenandoah, now 
Page county, July ii, 1817. His father was of Irish descent, and his 
mother's parents were of Welsh stock. Their ancestors came over to 
this country at an early day and settled in Virginia, where they engaged 
in farming pursuits. 

Owing to the imperfect school system of the Old Dominion, his early 
years were passed without many educational advantages, but, like every 
youth of an earnest, aspiring disposition, he used ever}' opportunity to 
gather practical, as well as theoretical, knowledge. Having entered 
upon his course of life with a determination to conquer success, his 
naturally apt mind, aided by such books as he was able to obtain, and 
by the counsel of friends, enabled him to achieve that practical culture 
which, after all, is worth far more to the earnest business man than the 
stuffing and tread-mill system too common in the educational machinery 
of the present day. 

At the age of thirten he entered a store in Sperryville, a small 
country town at the entrance of one of the gaps of the Blue Ridge, and 
after four years' work at the modest salary of seventy-live dollars per 
annum, he was intrusted with the management of a store at Thompson- 
ville, Virginia. Two years later Mr. George Ficklen, the proprietor of 
the store, and whom he still regards as the best friend and counsellor of 
his early years, admitted him to a partnership in the establishment. 
This continued two years, during which Mr. Britton was married, and 
soon after made arrangements to remove West. 

He came to Troy, Missouri, in 1840, and, with a capital of lifteen 
hundred dollars, opened a store for the sale of general merchandise in 
that town. Economy, energy and fair dealing brought their proper 
reward in a comparatively lucrative business, which he followed until 
1857. I" that year he came to St. Louis and took the responsible 
office of cashier in the Southern Bank, and, in 1864, became president 



336 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of that institution. His talents as a financier, and as an active, honora- 
ble, business man, soon called him to preside over the oldest, richest 
and most powerful moneyed institution in the city — the present National 
Bank of the State of Missouri. Here he still remains, and is regarded 
in all business circles as one of the ablest and safest financiers in the 
State. 

He has never been an office-seeker, but has been elected to quite a 
number of responsible, if not lucrative, positions. In 1848, he was 
Secretary of the Missouri State Senate : in 1852, and again in 1854. 
he was elected to the Legislature from Lincoln county ; he afterward 
served as Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, during the 
session of 1856-57. For several years he was treasurer of Lincoln 
county, and post-master at Troy, the county seat. After the death of 
John J. Roe, he was two years president of the Life Association of 
America. 

His active and honorable career has been the natural result of good 
principles, instilled in early life, and so rigidl}' adhered to afterward, 
that he enjo3's the respect and esteem of all classes of society. He was 
treasurer of the lUinois and St. Louis Bridge, and one of the pioneers 
in that enterprise. He not only proved a safe custodian of the milhons 
of money expended upon that structure, but also a most active and 
efficient member of the board of directors. As a banker, he is an 
exponent of the true principles that should control the power of the 
purse, to bring about the highest commercial good. 

On May 10, 1875, he was made the choice of the Democratic party 
of the city, in their Convention held at that date, to succeed the lamented 
Arthur B. Barret, whose death occurred onh' one short month after he 
was elected Mayor. He was nominated not only as the candidate of 
the entire party, but as the especial representative of the best, worthiest, 
and most intelligent elements of the party. He was triumphantly 
elected Mayor of the city, at a special election held May 15, 1875, ^y 
the votes and influence of the better classes of both parties, and of the 
substantial business men and merchants of the city. That his adminis- 
tration of the city affairs will be judicious and wise, none who know 
Mr. Britton entertain a doubt. Through all the varied responsibilities 
of life, he has acquitted himself with dignity, fidelity and honor, and 
won the approbation and esteem of opponents as well as friends. His 
large experience and great energy have been signally displayed in all 
enterprises that he has undertaken, and he is eminently a thoroughly 
practical and true type of a self-made man. 



HENRY C. BROCKMEYER. 



(iTENRY C. BROCKMEYER was born August 12, 1828, near 
-JLJL Minden, Prussia, in Germany. His father, Frederick William 
Brockmeyer, was born in the same vicinity, and was a general 
business man, in well-to-do circumstances. His mother was a descend- 
ant of one of the most distinguished families in the kingdom. Under 
the compulsory educational laws young Brockmeyer attended the com- 
mon schools in the vicinit}- of his home for nearly seven years, receiving 
religious instruction and studying elementary works. Becoming dis- 
satisfied with his surroundings, at the age of sixteen he left his home 
alone, and took passage in an emigrant ship for New York. The means 
at his command were onl}" sufficient to pay his passage and light inci- 
dental expenses across the waters. He landed in New York with only 
twenty-five cents in his pocket, and with a knowledge of only three 
words in the English language. He had not a single friend, or an 
acquaintance even, in the city. Out of means, his first solicitude was 
to find employment. He had no relative or friend to find a place for 
him. Willing to do anything useful by which he could earn a liveli- 
hood, or at least a subsistence, for the time being, he followed the 
occupation of a bootblack along the Bowery. At this rather menial 
pursuit he onl}^ worked for a short time, when he obtained a situation 
to learn the currier's trade, at a salary of three dollars per month and 
his board. Working diligently at this for six months, he had learned 
his trade, and then demanded and obtained a situation as a journeyman,- 
in which position he was able to earn one dollar per day. 

During this time he determined to master the English language, and 
all his thoughts and spare moments were turned in that direction. In 
this effort he was kindly assisted by his employer, who gave him access 
to his library. His early efforts in this line were in the study of com- 
mon picture books, the pictures in which the reading would explain. In 
this way, and bv noting down words he heard in conversation during 
the day, and studying out their meaning at night, he learned to read 
within a comparatively short time, and having acquired this faculty, he 
read such books as he could obtain which were the most useful to him. 



338 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

While thus employed, he came across a newspaper which contained a 
rather comprehensive review of the progress of trade and the mechan- 
ical arts in the West and South, from which he learned that business 
occupations and the machinery used in manufacturing establishments in 
the West and South were somewhat different from those in the East. 
He had a thorough knowledge of nearly all kinds of machinery, and a 
wonderful faculty in this respect. This article turned his attention to 
new fields of usefulness and labor, but he remained at his work, learn- 
in", in addition to that of the currier's trade, the business of tanning- and 
shoemaking. In order to save money enough to enable him to go West 
he economized in every possible way, worked all the more diligentl}', 
and slept in the shop at night. In every branch of his trade he acquired 
proficiency, and when he had saved a small sum of money, barely 
sufficient, however, for his purpose, he left New York and started 
West. He went first to Bufialo, thence by lake to Toledo, and from 
this point to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Here he obtained work in a tan- 
nery at his trade of tanner and currier, and, at a compensation of one 
dollar and fifty cents per day, remained until he had laid by the sum of 
two hundred dollars, which was only to be touched in the event of some 
unlooked-for misfortune. To this day he had adhered to this idea, that 
it is always best to have a small reserve fund laid aside for a "rainy day." 

From Fort Wayne he went to Dayton, Ohio, and from that point to 
Cincinnati, making the journe}^ on foot a greater part of the distance, 
but at neither place obtaining employment. At Cincinnati he took 
passage by river on a steamboat for St. Louis, and landed here for the 
first time in August 1848. To replenish his purse, he sought for and 
obtained employment in the tannery of Mr. Howe, with whom he 
remained two months. He then, in company with an old classmate, 
whom he accidentally met, went to Memphis, Tennessee, and from 
there to the central portion of Mississippi, finally bringing up at Colum- 
bus, in that State, where he obtained work, still following his trade. 
His thorough knowledge of his business, and his apt turn of mind, 
enabled him to introduce a number of improvements in the establish- 
ment where he worked, for which he was liberally compensated. 
From this point, having accumulated some means he went to Oktibbeha 
county, where he was kindly received and encouraged. There was 
great need there of just such an establishment as Mr. Brockme3^er 
proposed to start. With the business of tanner and currier he combined 
the making of boots and shoes. His business once fairly started became 
very lucrative. By utilizing decrepit laborers, broken down negro 



HENRY C. BROCKMEYER 



339 



farm hands, whom he obtained at a mere nominal rate of wages, he was 
able to make a pair of shoes at a cost of six and a quarter cents. 
Eastern-made work could not compete with goods made at such low 
ligures, and the result was that he had a monopol}^ of his business in 
that section. But the unfavorable climate, combined with over-work 
began to tell upon his naturally strong and vigorous constitution, and 
after two years of almost unremitting labor and attention to business, he 
sold out and shortly afterward became interested in religious questions. 
With a desire to learn what he could, and prepare himself for some one 
of the professions, he went to Georgetown College, Kentucky, and 
entered the preparatory department of that institution in the fall of 1850. 
He remained here a little over two years, and applied his mind closelv 
to his books. Owing to theological disputes which arose between the 
president of the institution and himself, and on account of the wide 
difference in their respective views, Mr. Brockmeyer was threatened 
with dismissal by the president : and so withdrew from the institution 
and went to Brown University, where he took an eclectic course. 
Among his classmates here was the Hon. Thomas L. Ewing, of Ohio. 
Under Dr. Wayland's tutorship he remained nearly two years, and was 
often a full match in class arguments upon religious questions for that 
distinguished divine. 

On account of some family relations he made up his mind to return 
to Germany, and for this purpose went to New York, satchel in hand, 
in order to take passage in the steamship Hermann for Bremen. 
Standing upon the wharf and watching, in deep thought, the slow 
revolution of her padddle-wheels, he came to the conclusion that to 
return to the old land, under the circumstances, would change his 
whole course of life. His experience and learning obtained here 
without any assistance outside of his own exertions, had taught him 
many useful lessons, and so, after a short meditation, he turned away 
and concluded to return again to the West. 

In 1854, he came to St. Louis for the second time. Taking his books 
and gun, he went into the woods in Warren county, onl}^ stopping in the 
city a few days. Here, having provided himself with a few necessary 
articles of household furniture, he moved into an abandoned cabin, 
where he remained nearly three years, with a faithful dog as his onlv 
companion. In the meantime he made his own clothes and shoes, 
supplied himself with an abundance of game, and cooked his own 
meals. His time was spent in study and attending to such cares as 
were incident to pecuHar surroundings. His studies while here. 



340 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



were directed more for his own culture than for any useful avoca- 
tion in life, for even at this time he had not decided what profes- 
sional calling he would adopt. Having satistied himself with this 
singular mode of life, and desiring to do something which would 
insure him a comfortable independence, he again returned to the 
city, and finding that the highest wages paid were to iron moulders, 
he sought and obtained employment in the foundry of Giles F. 
Filley, where he remained only six weeks. Subsequently meeting 
an acquaintance, he obtained a situation in the foundry of Bridge, 
Beach & Co., where he worked at piece work, earning at this the 
sum of fifteen dollars per week, and finding himself. None of his 
leisure hours were wasted in idleness : his work for the day being done, 
he devoted his evenings to study. When he had nearly completed his 
trade in the foundry, he was accidentally discovered by William T. 
Harris, now Superintendent of Public Schools, who originated a class 
consisting of himself, Franklin Childs, Dr. Watters, and a few others, 
for the purpose of obtaining instruction in German philosophy. Mr. 
Brockmeyer was solicited to become their instructor. He refused to 
quit his work in the foundry, but offered to give them all the assistance 
in his power in the evenings, and on Sundays. This they accepted, 
and these studies were pursued to the mutual advantage and benefit of 
all the parties for some months. Having in the meantime earned a 
sufficient sum of money to purchase some land, he bade his Iriends 
good-bye, and returned to Warren county, where he invested his money 
in a tract of eighty acres. Mr. Harris and the other gentlemen whom 
he had instructed in German philosophy, as a token of their high regard 
and esteem presented him with some useful books, upon his departure, 
which have proved to be of almost incalculable value to him. 

Having acquired full possession of his land, his first work was to build 
himself a small cabin, which completed, he got all his books and papers 
together, and once more commenced the life of a recluse student. In 
the fall of 1858, he was stricken down with a severe attack of bilious 
fever, and, with no one near but his faithful dog, lay dangerously ill and 
utterly unable to help himself. In this condition he was discovered by 
a nei(i[hbor, who communicated the news of his condition to his friend 
Mr. Harris. This gentleman at once proceeded to Mr. Brockmeyer" s 
cabin-home and had him brought to the cit}^ where, under kind treat- 
ment and care, he recovered his health in due time. Afterward, his 
class resumed their German philosophical studies. In the meantime, he 
undertook a literal translation of the large Logic of Hegel, in three 



HENRY C. BROCKMEYER. 34I 

volumes, which task he completed in one year. This manuscript is 
still in his possession, and but for the failure of the publishing house in 
London it would have formed a part of Bohn's Classical Library. 

In 1861, when the war broke out, Mr. Brockmeyer was still engaged 
in literary pursuits. During the summer of that year he was united in 
marriage to Miss Elizabeth Robertson, an estimable lady of this city, 
and at once made arrangements to return to his farm in Warren county, 
beyond the reach of the turmoils of war. His marriage involved new 
duties — the care and support of his family — and so he sought the inde- 
pendence of farm life. Shortly afterward, the State demanded of all 
its citizens military duty. This service Mr. Brockmeyer did not feel it 
to be his privilege to deny, and so enrolled himself in the militia. He 
was elected captain of the first company organized ; was afterward 
commissioned as captain, and subsequenth' as provisional lieutenant- 
colonel, with authority to organize a regiment. This was performed in 
the course of three weeks, and the muster-roll of the regiment was pre- 
sented to the Governor, along with the unanimous petition of the entire 
regiment, including ofiicers and privates, that he should be appointed 
colonel. The petition was rejected by the Governor ; the muster-roll 
declined ; and two days after he was arrested, charged with disloyalty, 
and thrown into Gratiot street prison. He subsequently found out that 
his arrest and imprisonment was at the instigation of Colonel Louis 
Merril, of Louisiana fame, but through the representations of friends as 
to the facts in the case he was soon after released from prison. He was 
dismissed from the service as Lieutenant-Colonel, thus leaving him plain 
Captain. In six weeks afterward Mr. Brockmeyer was elected, by an 
overwhelming majority, a member of the lower house of the Legislature 
from Warren county, where he boasted of the fact that his was the onlj- 
county that gave a larger vote on that occasion than it had ever polled 
before. During his term of office he sustained the polic}" advocated by 
the "War Democrats ;" voted for Samuel T. Glover some sixty-three 
times for the United States Senate ; and in general took that position in 
political life which he has maintained ever since. 

At the close of his term of office in the Legislature in 1863-4, ^^^ 
removed to St. Louis, having previously been admitted to the Bar in 
Warren county. He had studied law without a teacher. In the fall 
of 1864 he sustained a domestic affliction in the loss of his wife, who 
left two children, the youngest only four months old. Arriving here 
without means he applied himself to the practice of his profession, 
which he has prosecuted with success. He has participated actively 



342 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

in near!}' all political movements, and particularl}^ prior to 1865, in 
those movements which had for their object the prevention of the 
disfranchising of our citizens who had participated in, or had coincided 
with, the Southern views of the war. Subsequently he labored earnestly 
to restore the rights of citizenship to those citizens who had been 
deprived of them. 

In 1866 he was a member of the Board of Aldermen, where he 
served the city well and faithfully. 

In January 1867, he married for his second wife Miss Julia Keinlen, 
a resident of this city, and whose parents came to St. Louis at a very 
early day. 

He was legislated out of the Board of Aldermen in the spring of 
1867, and devoted all his time again to the pursuit of his profession. 

In 1870 he was elected to the State Senate. Here he served the 
State ably, and on every important question took a prominent part. He 
wielded great influence in securing the passage of important bills, and in 
defeating such measures as he conceived to be detrimental to the best 
interests and prejudicial to the general welfare of the people of the 
State. When his term of office as Senator expired he declined a 
re-election. 

In November 1874, ^""^ was, at the earnest solicitation of a large 
number of our best citizens, a candidate for member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1875, and was elected by a handsome majorit}'. 

In the session of the Senate of 1873-4 he was a strong opponent of 
what was known as Heard's revenue bill, and for strenuous and 
successful eflbrts to defeat that measure, which had the opposition of 
so large a portion of our mercantile communitv, he was tendered a 
public banquet upon his return to the city. This he declined, assuring 
his friends that he had only performed his duty. To his eftbrts is 
mainly due the passage, by the Senate, of an act limiting the power of 
taxation by cities, counties and the State. He also drew up an act,, 
which passed the Senate but failed in the House, to the effect that every 
citizen, whether plaintiff or defendant, involved in litigation against 
moneyed corporations, should receive from such corporations a suffi- 
cient sum to defray the legal expenses thereof, where the party was too- 
poor to defray the expenses of such litigation. He devised a measure, 
when chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, for the better 
protection of the credit of the State. When in the Senate, he was 
chairman for two years of the Judiciarv Committee, and also served the 
same length of time as chairman of the Committee of Wavs and Means- 





^^Cirh 



iTh^ 




BRITTON A. HILL. 



OrITTON ARMSTRONG HILL, for the past thirty-four years a 
A_J practicing lawyer in St. Louis and Washington City, is a native 
of New Jersey, and about tifty-six years of age. He is univer- 
sally acknowledged by his brethren of the Bar to stand at the head 
of his profession in the Valley of the Mississippi. 

We are unable to give a minute account of his early life, because 
he declined to furnish it to the editors of this work for publication. 
We have ascertained, however, from other sources, that he was edu- 
cated in Ogdensburg, New York ; was admitted to the Bar at Albanv, 
and to the Court of Chancery at Saratoga in 1839. After practicing the 
law for two years in Ogdensburg, Mr. Hill emigrated to the West, 
arriving at St. Louis in August 1841, where he was admitted to the Bar 
by the Hon. Bryan Mullanphy, the Circuit Judge of the district embrac- 
ing St. Louis. 

Here, in this new' home, without a friend in a land of strangers, he 
began life in earnest, and literally fought his w^ay to the top, against 
very serious obstacles of every sort that fortune or fate placed in his 
path. We are told that when the x\siatic cholera of 1849 visited St. 
Louis, bringing with it a death-rate of one hundred to two hundred and 
fifty per day, in a population of 40,000, when two thousand persons 
were sick at a time and the physicians were unable to visit more than 
half of them, Mr. Hill, who had studied medicine, having ascertained 
from the ablest doctors then in the city the best mode of treatment in 
private practice and in the hospitals, went daily for several weeks into 
the poor districts, where the scourge was most fatal, visiting the sick, 
laying out the dead, and relieving the distresses of the poor and unfor- 
tunate by all the means in his power at his own personal expense, with- 
out any other reward than the consciousness of a noble work of pure 
charity, done at great risk to his own life. The epidemic continued 
during May, June, Jul}' and August, carrying off about 8,475 souls, or 
more than one-tifth of the whole population of St. Louis. 



344 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



It was by such grand acts of self-sacrificing charity that Mr. Hill laid 
the foundations of his great personal popularity among the poorer 
classes of the citizens, which, combined with a high order of intellect- 
ual power and great oratorical force, made him irresistible before the 
juries in the multitudinous cases of all descriptions committed to his 
charge. His law practice had already become the largest and most 
lucrative of an}- in the State. His indomitable energy, unfailing mem- 
ory, critical accuracy of analysis, and almost inexhaustible powers of 
endurance, enabled him to rise, with the increase of his business, to the 
very highest points of legal attainment, until at length he is acknowl- 
edged to be one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the United States. 

On Mr. Hill's arrival in St. Louis, he formed a copartnership with 
John M. Eager, Esq., of Newburg, New York, which continued until 
1848, when, Mr. Eager proposing to return to his native State, the con- 
nection was terminated, and Mr. Hill continued the business as the 
surviving member of the firm in St. Louis. In 1850 he took his brother, 
David W. Hill, into his office, and gave him an interest in the business. 
In 1854, Wm. N. Grover, Esq., of Illinois, was added to the firm, 
under the style of Hill, Grover & Hill, which continued until 1858, 
when Mr. Hill dissolved the copartnership, and devoted himself exclu- 
sively to the land practice and important insurance and railroad cases. 
Finding the labors of his profession too onerous, he formed a copartner- 
ship with the Hon. D, T. Jewett in 1861, which continued for about 
ten years, when it was dissolved b}' mutual consent. In the spring -of 
1873, Mr. Hill formed a copartnership with Frank J. Bowman, Esq., 
of Vermont, under the style of Hill & Bowman, which is now sub- 
sisting. 

During the war of the rebellion, in 1863, the Hon. Thomas Ewing, of 
Ohio, and the Hon. Orville H. Browning, of Illinois, formed a copart- 
nership with Mr. Hill, in the city of Washington, under the st34e of 
Ewing, Hill & Browning, for the transaction of important legal business 
in the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Court of Claims, 
and before the Departments of the Federal Government. Mr. Hill 
still continued his business in St. Louis, but devoted most of his time to 
the more important cases arising in Washington. This firm was one of 
the strongest combinations of legal learning and power that has ever 
been formed in the United States, and it continued until the spring of 
1865, when, at the close of the war, Mr. Hill retired and returned to 
St. Louis. 

It is in these thirty-four years of law practice, in all its branches. 



BRITTON A. HILL 



345 



that Mr. Hill has established a reputation that has become national, and 
although we have been driven to the necessit}^ of gathering this history 
from the records and reports of the courts, and the information derived 
trom his contemporaries, we feel it to be our duty, as a part of the his- 
tory of St. Louis, to present his life to our readers, as it appears in his 
great and valuable works and labors, "for it is by their fruits ye shall 
know them." 

It is from the example presented by such a life that the young men 
of the country may be stimulated to greater efforts to promote the hap- 
piness of their fellow men — for it is in the great love for humanity, the 
desire to promote the prosperity and elevate the motives for human 
action — that the subject of this sketch is distinguished from most of the 
other great men of the age in which we live. 

But Mr. Hill is not only "a jurist of eminent ability," as he has been 
declared in opinions of the Supreme Court of Missouri : in the midst 
of his herculean labors at the Bar, he has found time to produce, as an 
author, the most profound and original works of this or any other age, 
on the principles of representative co-operative government and the 
system of finance necessary for the perfection of the national econom}- 
of such a government. In August 1873, he published his first work, 
entitled "Liberty and Law under the Federative Government; present- 
ing a system for the perfection of the government of the United States 
so as to make it a co-operative representative republican government, 
with a perfected governmental machinery adapted to advance the civil- 
ization of the age far beyond its present limits and secure its blessings 
for a long series of ages." 

With a prophetic foresight, he has pointed out the imminent dangers 
threatening our republican institutions, from executive, legislative, 
judicial, corporative, hierarchical and other despotisms, that are silently 
but surely undermining the common liberties of the people. He 
proposes the onl}- conceivable remedies to avoid this national calamity 
in the remarkable work on "Liberty and Law." It has been fitly st3'led 
the new gospel of human freedom, by one of the greatest humanitarians 
of our age; and really, when we read the sublime utterances of this 
master of republican philosophy, a feeling of confidence in the race and 
in the feasibilit}^ of its progressive elevation takes possession of the 
mind. It is the most hopeful book of the century, and fills the friends 
of freedom and humanity with a thousand noble aspirations. 

Thirty-five years* practice in the law, in the courts of New York, 
Missouri and the Supreme Court of the United States, had given 



346 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mr. Hill, as he remarks in his preface, many opportunities to observe 
the operations of our federative form of government, and of our different 
State Constitutions, and laws upon the civilization, welfare, happiness, 
rights and liberties of the citizens, for whose benefit the Constitution of 
the United States declares the government had been established. A 
careful analysis and study of our present system, and its practical 
working, convinced him that the weakness and instability of our federa- 
tive republican institutions, was directly owing to an originally defective 
machinery of State and Federal organization ; and to a misconception 
on the part of our governments. State and Federal, of their full duties 
under the law. To the former defect he attributes the outbreak of the 
late civil war, which, under a properly constructed machinery of State 
and federative governments, never would have occurred ; to the latter 
he attributes the growth of the powerful monopolies that, in conjunction 
with ignorance and impurity — alternately supporting and deriving 
support from them — threaten every form of liberty that has grown 
dear to us. 

This work attracted wide-spread attention, and St. Louis was congra- 
tulated on all sides on the possession of a thinker so original and pro- 
found. The press, at home and abroad, acknowledged it to be the 
work of an unquestionably cultivated mind, setting it down as one of 
the most valuable contributions to political science ever presented to 
the world. That it produced a lasting impression on the people may 
be found in the fact that the Constitutional Convention, now in session 
at Jefferson City, does not hesitate to adopt its enunciated principles 
of restrictions and limitations of legislative power in the formation of a 
constitutional code for the State. It should have adopted many others 
of his proposed reforms, but the time has not yet come, apparently. 
This, doubtless, is the highest compliment that could be paid to the 
author. It is acknowledged to be a work of great power, the result of 
deep, thorough and diligent research. The eleven Democratic States 
that carried the elections in the fall of 1874, 'Adapted their platforms to 
the fundamental principles announced in "Liberty and Law." In it 
Mr. Hill foretold the financial crisis of September 1873, and gave his 
reasons why it was inevitable, and proposed the measures necessary to 
avoid its disastrous effects. At the urgent request of many persons, but 
especially of some of the most prominent National Bank managers and 
capitalists of the country, Mr. Hill has just published a new work, ela- 
borating the treatise on money in "Liberty and Law," developing a 
new financial system for the United States, for the relief of trade and 



BRITTON A. HILL. 347 

manufactures, and to establish a national money system. It is enti- 
tled, "Absolute Money: A New System of National Finance, under a 
Co-operative Government." 

In this work, the author proposes to substitute for the irrational 
medley of bond money, legal tender money, national bank money and 
gold and silver money — an absolute national money, irredeemable in 
metallic coins or interest-bearing bonds, but convertible into all the 
commodities of the nation, b}" making it the legal-tender money of this 
country, for all debts and duties and taxes, to the exclusion of all other 
money. After the adoption of this system, gold and silver would no 
longer be a legal tender, the absolute money only being clothed with 
that sovereign prerogative. The National Banks would be divorced 
from the Treasury and from Congress ; their circulation surrendered 
for cancellation ; their bonds in the Treasury, to secure their circula- 
tion, sold to the Government at the current rate of premium, and 
absolute money delivered to the banks for the total amount of principal, 
premium and interest due when the bonds would be cancelled, and the 
banks, as joint stock companies organizing under State laws, w^ould 
continue their business as banks of discount and deposit, using the 
absolute money as the basis of their banking operations and exchanges. 
This would increase their circulation about $220,000,000, and furnish 
a money that would be based on the annual products, amounting to 
$8,000,000,000, and the total wealth of the Republic, now estimated at 
$250,000,000,000. Excellent financial critics declare this new sj'-stem 
of national linance to be scientific and complete. 

This new system of finance commends itself to the people, as the only 
scientific plan for a complete national money system for the Republic. 
It proposes a full payment of the national bonds in absolute money — an 
annual saving of $107,000,000 for coin interest on the bonds — the aboli- 
tion of the internal revenue taxation and expenses of $200,000,000 more, 
and the tariff' system — the separation of the National banks from the 
Treasur}' and Congress — and the restoration of trade, commerce and 
manufactures to their former prosperity and power. The adoption of 
Mr. Hill's sj'stem of finance would remove from the people a vast 
amount of burdens and tax-gathering oppressions, under the weight of 
which they now suffer and groan. 

For his record as a lawyer, w^e have only to apply to the reports of 
the courts of Missouri, and in Washington, where his herculean labors 
stand forth as imperishable monuments of his legal learning, genius, 
and inexhaustible resources for w^ork, analysis and thorough investiga- 



348 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

tion. And in this connection, it is the wonder of all who knew him, 
how, amid his multifarious professional duties, he has found time to 
give his concentrated attention to works embodying the most abstruse 
problems in hygiene, education, government, and the adjustment of the 
various codes with all their checks and balances, so as to organize a 
complete system, harmoniously adjusted to protect all the citizens in the 
proper use of their faculties, without any of the obstructions of fraud, 
ignorance or despotism, to the end that each individual in the State may 
attain the greatest good, happiness, wisdom and beauty, of which his 
faculties are capable ; first, for himself ; second, for his family, and 
third, for the society or State in which he lives. 

How Mr. Hill could have found time to give to such subjects, the 
amount of labor and deep study he has evidently done, is a source of 
much wonder and amazement. 

One among the many important suits Mr. Hill has gained in his prac- 
tice before the Supreme Court of the United States — that of the State 
of Missouri against the Railroads — may be given as an example of his 
wonderful powers. For two years he kept battling with the railway 
monopolies in this case, and at last obtained a decree authorizing 
•States, counties and cities to tax railroad property, and declaring that 
their charters did not exempt them from taxes. This was one or the 
most important cases ever argued before the Federal Supreme Court, 
involving, as it did, power to tax $50,000,000 of railroad property and 
the future increase thereof. This is looked upon as one of the causes 
celebres of the United States. In the legal reports of the Supreme 
Court of the country we find many such cases, in which Mr. Hill has 
taken a prominent part. 

Thus we see that as a lawyer, a thinker, as a political economist and 
author, Mr. Hill holds a national reputation, and the most that we can 
hope for in this necessarily brief sketch of such a man, is a mere out- 
line of his active career. To do anything like justice to the person 
who conceived such works as " Liberty and Law," '-'Absolute Money," 
etc., would require far more space than we can allow. Sufiice it to sav 
that he is one of the few men of St. Louis whose works are known, not 
alone to the readers and thinkers of his native country, but to the 
greatest statesmen and the most cultivated scholars of Europe. 
Wherever the English language is read or spoken ; wherever the intel- 
lectual rules the physical, there will the works of Mr. Hill be known, 
and there will his name be respected. 



BRITTON A. HILL. 349 

Mr. Hill is a man of large stature, of dignified presence, full of intel- 
lectual and ph^'sical vitality, strong and robust, in the full command of 
his physical and mental powers, and a man who, notwithstanding the 
grand labors he has performed during thirty-six years of practice at the 
Bar, may reasonably look for many years of useful and appreciative 
reward vet to come. 



HON. HENRY T. BLOV/. 



'MONG all the prominent men of St. Louis, no one has done more 
to advance her material interests, or to develop and promote 
social culture, than the subject of this sketch. In fact, we may 
■say, without depreciating the influence or high standing of others, but 
few, if any, have achieved success in so man}- important pursuits as 
Henry Taylor Blow. As a business man, he has stamped his name 
indelibly upon the community, leading in enterprises which many had 
not the courage to undertake, and persistently holding on when others 
would have abandoned them as hopeless. In public affairs he has hon- 
estly gained distinction, and without seeming to desire or to seek place 
and power. His character is presented to us in a three-fold aspect, viz : 
As an intelligent citizen, impressing his views upon society ; as a busi- 
ness man, and as a statesman. 

Mr. Blow by birth is a Virginian, having been born in Southampton 
county, July 15, 181 7. His ancestors came from England in the early 
part of the eighteenth century, and can trace their lineage to the time of 
Charles I. His father, Captain Peter Blow, was a respectable planter 
of Virginia, who removed about 1825 to Alabama, but a few years later 
came to St. Louis, and engaged in hotel-keeping. His death occurred 
in 1831. 

The elder Blow was married to Miss Elizabeth Taylor of Virginia, 
by whom he had twelve children, and of whom Henry and William are 
the only surviving sons. 

Henry T. Blow received excellent earl}- instruction, and at a suitable 
age was placed in the St. Louis University, then, as now, one of the 
best educational establishments in the West, from which he graduated. 
While a student in this institution he was diligent in his studies, and, 
though not brilliant, was always punctual and reliable. He always 
knew his lessons, and could give a reason for everything. It is related 
that, on one occasion, when his class gave an exhibition in oratory, 
Hon. Thomas H. Benton was present. The prize medal was awarded 
to another student, contrary to young Blow's expectations, and of 



352 BIOGRAPHICALS KETCHES. 

course he was aggrieved thereat. Benton saw it, and when the exer- 
cises were over he said to him, laying his hand kindly on his shoulder, 
"Never mind, 3'oung man ; you earned the medal, if you did not get it. 
You will win honors enough some day." These kind words from such 
a source did him more good than a dozen prizes. 

It was the intention of his father to ht him for the profession of law, 
but after a temporary clerkship in the drug establishment of Joseph 
Charless & Son, he developed so fair a talent for business that it was 
decided that he must lead a business life. He very soon became one 
of the most active and reliable clerks in this well-known house, and 
ultimately was considered indispensable to his employers. 

In 1836, Mr. Charless, Sr., retired from active business life, and 
Mr. Blow was taken in as a partner by the son, the tirm name being 
changed to Charless & Blow. The house did an extensive and profit- 
able business throughout tlie West and South, and the names of the 
partners were everywhere synonyms for honor and fair dealing. In 
1839 ^^"- Charless retired, selling his entire interest in the drug store 
to Mr. Blow, who conducted it until 1840, when Mr. Charless again 
became a partner, the firm becoming Joseph Charless & Co. About 
this time the White Lead Works were brought into existence. At first 
the manufacture of white lead was a part of the business of the drug 
firm ; it subsequently became enlarged, and Mr. Blow gave to this 
interest most of his personal attention. In 1844, the drug firm was 
dissolved, Mr. Charless remaining as proprietor, and Mr. Blow assuming 
the entire control of the White Lead Works. The business became 
very prosperous under his intelligent and active management, and 
yielded the proprietor annually a handsome income. In four or five 
vears from the time he took charge of the White Lead Works, Mr. 
Blow had amassed a large fortune, and began to think of retiring from 
the active management of the business. His clear judgment and 
practical knowledge, however, which served so good a purpose in 
conducting the business thus far, were deemed quite as necessary in its 
continuance, but as the lead works had become an immense concern, 
more than one man was needed to direct its various departments. A 
charter was obtained from the Legislature, and a company was organ- 
ized, called "The Collier White Lead and Oil Company." Mr. Blow 
was made president of the new organization. Associated with him 
were some of the best business men of the city, and skilled workmen to 
carry on the manufacture of white lead. 

Each vear since its establishment the business has increased rapidly. 



HON. HENRY T . B I. O W . 35 3 

until, at the present time, the annual value of the products of the 
compan}' cannot be far from two millions of dollars. Works of 
such magnitude must necessarily consume a vast amount of lead ore. 
Looking into the future with almost prophetic vision, Mr. Blow saw 
the necessity of making the supply of ore equal to the demand, and 
accordingl}' leased and purchased extensive lead tracts in the southwest 
part of the State. The Granby Mining and Smelting Company, of 
which he is president, was formed as auxiliary to the White Lead 
Companv. It has grown to be a powerful and wealth v organization, 
and not only supplies lead for the use of the White Lead Works, but 
sends a large amount into the market to be used for the various purposes 
of manufacture. The company owns mines and smelting furnaces at 
the town of Granby, in Newton county, and here are the headquarters : 
but it also has large and important interests at Joplin and Oronogo, in 
Jasper county. Thus it will be seen that by the foresight of Mr. Blow 
in purchasing lead lands and establishing the Granby Mining and 
Smelting Company, the Collier White Lead and Oil Works have a 
source of supply which can never be cut off. Mines in other sections of 
the State may fail ; the amount of lead on the market ma}- be exhausted : 
or the prices of ore rule high, but as long as the Granb}- Mining Com- 
pan}' and the Collier White Lead Company are united in interest, white 
lead can be manufactured and the public demand supplied. 

Though never possessing a strong passion for politics, Mr. Blow has 
ahvays shown a commendable interest in public affairs. He never 
sought political honors or office, but has been sought after frequently, 
and had honors thrust upon him. Thus it was in the earlier years of 
his business career : he had shown so much enterprise and intelligence 
in directing his own affairs, that he was selected to transact business for 
the State in the capacity of Senator, and this at a time when his politi- 
cal sentiments were not in accord with a majority of those who voted 
for him. 

Mr. Blow, at an early da}-, identified himself with the Free Soil 
movement, and in the Legislature, as well as on various public occa- 
sions, did not hesitate to declare himself as opposed to the encroach- 
ments of slaver}^ and in favor of free labor. Many of his warmest 
friends, and even relatives, differed from him politically, but he never 
for a moment w^avered in his purposes and principles. 

In June i860, the National Republican Convention met in the city of 
Chicago to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. 
Mr. Blow was chosen by the Republicans of Missouri as one of the 



354 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



delegates, and was honored by the Convention by being made one of 
its vice-presidents. He returned home to take an active part in the 
pohtical campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. 
In 1861, Mr. Lincoln honored him with the appointment of Minister 
to Venezuela. He accepted the position and entered upon the discharge 
of his duties with his accustomed energy ; but near the close of a year's 
service he became convinced that higher duties awaited him at home. 
His cool judgment and business capacity were needed in a successful 
prosecution of the w^ar, and he came home ready to serve where most 
needed. In 1862 he was nominated to Congress by the Republicans of 
the (then) Second Congressional District, and served with ability on 
the Committee on Ways and Means. In 1864 Mr. Blow was a delegate 
to the Baltimore Republican Convention, w^hich re-nominated iVbraham 
Lincoln. He was re-elected to the Thirty-Ninth Congress, and served 
on the Committee on Appropriations, Bankrupt Law, and Reconstruc- 
tion. During his congressional career he made but few lengthy 
speeches, but devoted himself most assiduously to the wants of his con- 
stituents and the jjeneral interests of the country. His committee work 
was most elective, and his influence during the last session of the 
Thirtv-Ninth Congress was felt throughout the country. Plis extensive 
business in St. Louis requiring his attention, Mr. Blow declined further 
service in Congress. It was his intention to devote himself exclusively 
for the future to the care of his large private interests and to the wel- 
fare of his family, but early in the beginning of President Grant's 
administration the mission to Brazil was tendered him. At first he 
positively declined the honor, but as many of the business men of St. 
Louis urged his acceptance, on the ground that his influence would 
ultimately result in opening a trade between that counti"}' and the Miss- 
issippi Valley, he at length reconsidered his resolution, and was duly 
appointed Minister to the Government of Brazil, with full powers. He 
left St. Louis for his post of duty July 16, 1869, accompanied by his 
family. So far as diplomatic relations between the United States and 
Brazil were concerned, Mr. Blow's mission was a successful one. He 
accomplished, in less than two years, more than was expected, and 
made the way easy in the future for commercial intercourse. Conscien- 
tiously believing that all had been accomplished that diplomacy could 
do, Mr. Blow wrote to the Department of State to that eflect, and tend- 
ered his resignation, which was i"eluctantly accepted. He returned to 
the United States February i, 1871, and actively resumed business. He 
had resigned the presidency of the Collier White Lead and Oil Works 



HON. HEXRV T. BLOW. 355 

on leaving St. Louis for the Brazil mission, and was succeeded by 
Colonel Thomas Richeson, who had been connected with the Company 
for many 3^ears. Mr. Blow was still a director and land-owner, and 
was also at the head of the Granby Mining Company. To the special 
interests of this Company he turned his immediate attention, and made 
arrangements for carrying on lead mining and smelting on a more 
extensive scale than ever. Without much interruption, he lias con- 
tinued thus engaged up to the present time. 

In June 1874, President Grant appointed him as one of the Commis- 
sioners of the Government of the District of Columbia. As is well 
known, the affairs of the District were in a bad condition, and 
occasioned much comment all over the country. To bring order out of 
confusion, and make the wheels of the local government at Wash- 
ington run smoothly, was no easy matter ; yet the new Commissioners 
succeeded in doing it in a few months, and to Mr. Blow is due a large 
share of the credit. He received favorable mention from the press of 
both parties, and special thanks of the President, for the fearless and 
faithful manner in which he had discharged the duties of this office. 
He resigned the position of Commissioner December 31, 1874. 

Mr. Blow was married to Miss Minerva Grimsley, daughter of 
Colonel Thornton Grimsley, July 14, 1840. She was a lady of great 
excellence of character, fondly devoted to her husband and children, 
and distinguished for the many deeds of charity and christian bene^•o- 
lence performed during her married life. The union, which was a 
most happy one, was dissolved by the death of this estimable lady, 
on the 28th of June, 1875. Six children survive the mother, one of 
whom is the wife of Mr. Smirnoff, of the Russian Legation at 
Berlin. 

Mr. Blow, through his active life, alternating between business and 
polidcs, has found time to cultivate his aesthetic tastes, and to answer 
some of the demands of society. His beautiful home at Carondelet 
gives evidence of his love for all that is time and good in nature and 
art. Here he is surrounded by books, paintings and statuar}- ; his 
grounds are ample, and laid out with skill and artistic effect. Though 
bereft of the companion of his youth, he has still the love of children, 
and in this charming retreat he can tind sweet solace from his man\' 
public duties and business cares. Let us hope he may live long to 
enjoy it. 



RT. REV. P. J. RYAN. 



C A JMONG the pulpit orators of the day, no one occupies a more 
^A. enviable reputation, or a higher position, than the Right Reverend 
P. J. Ryan, the Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Louis. 

Patrick John Ryan was born at Thurles, in the County of Tip- 
perary, Ireland, in the year 1831. At a very early age he evinced a 
predilection for the priesthood, his whole soul being seemingly bound 
up in that sacred calling. To this end drifted the whole current of his 
thoughts. After attending a school in Dublin, he, in 1847, entered 
Carlaw College, near that city, where he received a thorough eccle- 
siastical education. The character of this institution of learning mav 
be judged when it is stated that Bishop English of Charleston, South 
Carolina, and Cardinal Cullen of Dublin, are among the students who 
once enjo3^ed its benefits. 

The subject of the present sketch, while attending this college filled 
the position of prefect of the lay house, and was ordained a sub-deacon 
while still a young man. Soon after leaving college, his attention was 
called to the United States as the most promising field for his future 
labors. To the ecclesiastic, as well as the artisan and professional man, 
America opened her hospitable arms, and all alike found a home upon 
her shores. Hither the 3"Oung student of divinity came. He arrived in 
St. Louis in 185 1. For some three months after his arrival he was 
stationed at St. Patrick's Church with P'ather Wheeler, and by special 
permission he also preached regularly in the Cathedral, although from 
his extreme youth he had not as yet been ordained a priest. 

Although somewhat an anomal}^ in the church, this was a noticeable 
event in the career of the young deacon, and evinced the appreciation 
his superiors entertained for his remarkable zeal and commanding talents 
that could not fail of recognition by those in authority. About this time 
he was appointed professor of English Literature in the Carondelet 
Theological Seminary, a position which he filled with great credit and 
success. This institution was subsequently transferred to Cape Gir- 
ardeau, where it still exists, for the education of young men intended 
for the priesthood. 



358 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

After attaining his majority in 1853, he was ordained a priest, and at 
the same time was appointed assistant pastor at the Cathedral. He per- 
formed the duties of rector of the Cathedral until i860, when he built 
the church and parochial school of the Annunciation, on Sixth and 
Labadie streets. While connected with this church he acted as chaplain 
to Gratiot street military prison, to which post he was appointed by the 
Archbishop, w^here he did all in his power to assuage the mental and 
physical sufferings of the prisoners, and impart to them spiritual com- 
fort. Hundreds of those unfortunate men, who, by the vicissitudes of 
war had become inmates of this place, now scattered broadcast over the 
whole South, remember with feelings of gratitude his humane ministra- 
tions and kindlv words of cheer, uttered to them when the strong iron 
bolts and bars shut them out from the world and friends, and invoke 
blessings on his head for many little acts of kindness which went far 
to lighten the heav}' burden of imprisonment. During his connection 
with the prison and hospital, his labors were marked by a large number 
of conversions, and it is said as many as 600 persons were baptized in 
the church. It mav be proper here to state, that upon the recommend- 
ation of General Blair, Father R^^an received from Washington a 
commission as Chaplain in the United States army, which, however, he 
saw lit to decline, but continued his connection with the prison. 

In 1861, Father Bannon, who had charge of St. John's Church, 
departed Sovith as Chaplain to a regiment in the service of the Con- 
federates, after which time Rev. P. T. Ring had charge of the con- 
gregation. Father Ryan was appointed Father Ring's successor, and 
immediatelv entered upon the duties of pastor of this church. He then 
concluded upon a European trip, as a relaxation from the severe dis- 
cipline to which he had been subject for some 3'ears back. He spent 
a year in Ireland, revisiting the scenes of his boyhood, and in France, 
Germanv and Italy. It was his good fortune to be in Rome during the 
celebration of the Centenary. During the following Lent he was 
invited by the Papal authorities to deliver the English sermon in Rome. 
This is considered one of the greatest honors that can be bestowed 
upon a priest of the Church of Rome : and is a distinction of no ordi- 
nary character, when it is taken into consideration that the choice is 
made from a large number of divines from the entire christian world, 
who are usually visiting the Eternal Cit}' during this holv season. The 
sermons had previousl}^ been preached by such men as Cardinal Wise- 
man, Archbishop Hughes of New York, the famous Father Thomas 
Burke, and a galaxy of other bright luminaries of the Church, whose 



R T . R E V . P . J . R V A N . 359 

names will go down to postent\' as among the greatest divines of their 
day, and whose efforts on such occasions are preserved in the archives 
of the Vatican tor the special admiration of generations to come. 

On his return to America in 1868, he was appointed Vicar-General of 
St. Louis, and during the absence of Archbishop Kendrick in Rome, 
while attending the Ecumenical Council, was administrator of the dio- 
cese, a trust he performed to the entire satisfaction of both clergy and 
laity. 

The weight of years began to tell upon Archbishop Kendrick ; with 
the march of civilization and progress westward the Roman Catholic 
diocese of St. Louis extended, until it was counted one of the largest 
and most important in America. The great city of St. Louis stretched 
forth its highwa3's and bywa3's until it became of metropolitan dimen- 
sions ; the Catholics of St. Louis, a city noted for its catholicity, had 
increased tenfold, and each succeeding year added thousands to their 
number ; the cross-crowned and glistening spires of Roman Catholic 
churches pierced the sky from all portions of the vast metropolis ; school- 
houses, convents, institutions of learning, and hospitals, connected with 
or immediately under the supervision of the Church, had in a few years 
increased in \'ast numbers, and it soon became apparent to the Arch- 
bishop that he must have an assistant or coadjutor in the administration 
of the diocese. Under these circumstances, the Archbishop applied to 
Rome for such an assistant, and, acting under the suggestion of the 
Bishops of the ecclesiastical diocese of St. Louis, the Sovereign Pontiff 
appointed Father Ryan Coadjutor-Bishop of St. Louis, with the title of 
Bishop of Tricomia, in Palestine, in pai'tibus injideliuiii . 

In 1866, Father Ryan attended the second Plenar}- Council at Balti- 
more, when he preached a sermon before the assembled prelates on 
"The Sanctity of the Church." This is looked upon as one of the 
greatest efforts of this learned and eloquent divine, and was published, 
among others, as one of the master-pieces of eloquence and erudition 
of the day. Father Ryan has also received the degree of LL. B. from 
the University of New York. 

His labors for years have been incessant, and of a nature calculated 
to wear away the most robust constitution. In addition to his parochial 
duties, he has been continualh' lecturing throughout the State, and ever 
on the alert to forward the holy cause of religion, in several instances, 
at the special request of the General Assembly of Missouri, he has 
addressed the assembled wisdom of the State, and on those occa- 
sions the Hall of Representatives, at Jefferson City, has been crowded 



360 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to suffocation by an eager multitude of all religious denominations, 
anxious to listen to the gifted orator. Let it be announced in St. 
Louis that he is to lecture, and the Temple or Mercantile Library Hall, 
fail to afford accommodations for the multitudes that clamor for admis- 
sion. It has been truthfully stated that no orator of the West can draw 
an audience of so much intelligence, and representing so much wealth, 
as can Bishop Ryan. On these occasions, lawyers, doctors, ministers 
of the gospel, representatives of the arnw, merchant princes — all of the 
wealth, refinement and intelligence of the Southwestern metropolis — are 
to be found in attendance. His fervid eloquence, forcible manner, 
earnest delivery and displa}' of dramatic power, never fail to hold the 
attention of his audience. 

On the 14th day of April 1872, Father Ryan was consecrated Bishop- 
at St. John's Church. Every available spot in the vast edifice was 
occupied on this occasion, and it was with difficulty the crowds on the- 
outside were restrained, so great was the anxiety of the people to see 
their favorite pulpit orator made a prince of the church. Thousands 
who were unable to gain admission, were obliged to content themselves 
with the graphic descriptions of the interesting ceremonies, which 
appeared in the daily papers next da}'. 

Bishop Ryan is now in his forty-fifth year, the prime of -manhood,, 
with a long life, it is to be hoped, of usefulness before him. He is a 
little above the medium height, with a purely classical head, set firmly 
upon a pair of broad shoulders. His voice is peculiarly pleasing, and 
when he warms up to his subject, his eloquence is like an avalanche of 
the Alps, irresistible, and sweeping every obstacle before it. 



ELIHU H. SHEPARD. 



)nr(0 the many who may peruse the biographies of this work, the 

\ name that heads this sketch is as familiar as "- household words." 
Many of the men who now occupy prominent positions in the 
different walks of life in St. Louis are pupils of his ; and to him, above 
all other men, are they, in a measure, indebted for their success in life. 
Many who are long since gathered to their fathers, secured the first 
rudiments of an education under his instruction, and ever stood ready 
to bear witness to his merits and scholar^ attainments. His name is 
associated with the earh^ recollections of more prominent men than 
that of any other citizen of St. Louis. 

Elihu Hotchkiss Shepard was born on the 15th of October 1875, 
at Halifax, Windham County, State of Vermont, during the presidency 
of George Washington. He is the son of Abel Shepard and Sarah 
Dalrymple, the former a native of Connecticut, and the latter of Massa- 
chusetts. During the early years of his boyhood, Elihu received such 
instruction as could then be obtained at the common schools of New 
England. In his twelfth year his father, who appears to have been a 
man of considerable attainments, undertook the education of his own 
famih' — an undertaking in which he seems to have succeeded admirably. 
In 181 1 the lirst public school in that section of the country was opened, 
and a gentleman of much refinement and education, named Gordon 
Hawkins, employed as teacher. 

Upon reviewing the past studies of young Shepard, the new teacher 
immediately formed a high opinion of his attainments, and advised 
him to begin the study of a profession without delay. 

But the great battle of Trafalgar had been fought, and the English 
remained masters of the sea; and his father, who had been a trader 
with the East Indies, saw that the country was on the eve of another 
great stuggle, and was not determined in his own mind what profession 
was most suitable to his son. He, himself, had studied law in his 
younger days, but had never practiced. 

However, he bought a law library from a retired lawyer, and \oung 



362 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Elihu immediately began to stuch', under the direction of Judge Silas 
Stowe, of Louisville, Lewis county. New York, and continued it, at 
intervals, for eight 3'ears, until he left that State for Missouri, in 18 19. 
Besides studying industriously during twelve years, he served in the 
arm}' of his country during the war of 181 2, and had taught in public 
schools and academies three vears. He had also taken all the degrees 

*■' O 

in the order of Ancient and Accepted Free Masonr3^ and had made 
quite a reputation as a lecturer among the brotherhood in the States and 
in Canada. His reminiscences of this war, contained in his autobiogra- 
phy, are looked upon as containing some of the most interesting and 
reliable annals of that memorable struo-o-le. 

During the years i820-"2i, Mr. Shepard taught school very success- 
full}'^ in Illinois. It was during this eventful period that he first became 
acquainted with his wife, Miss Mar}' Thomas, who was a pupil of his, 
and to w^hom he was married in St. Louis after he had removed perma- 
nently there. 

In February 1823, Mr. Shepard was offered and accepted the position 
of professor of languages in St. Louis College, a position he held until 
1826. It was during this interv^al that he directed the studies of some 
of the best business men, jurists and scholars that ever adorned society 
in St. Louis. Man}' of them are now dead, but have left their foot- 
prints on the sands of time. Others still live, ornaments to the differ- 
ent professions or shining lights in the great commercial centre of the 
•Southwest. Among those who were made recipients of his instruction 
are General Wm. Clark, Governor McNair, Colonel Easton, Dr. Robin- 
son, Dr. Farrar, Colonels R. and G. Paul, Judge Primm, Judge Bates, 
Judge Bent, Mr. F. Dent, Dr. Simpson, Theodore Labeaume, Judge 
Ferguson, Governor DeLassus, General Pratt, Colonel Laveille, the 
Papin familv, the Chouteau family, and many others whose names 
stand synonymous for all that is honorable and upright. But few men 
can look back into the years that have flown, and say they have had 
the forming of the minds of such galaxy of stars as can Mr. Shepard. 
This alone has been a great reward for his many labors and anxieties. 

Having great confidence in the growth of St. Louis, Mr. Shepard 
lost no opportunitv of investing his surplus earnings in real estate. By 
this foresight, his estate, at the present dav, is reckoned among the 
most valuable in the city, and his old age and declining years have been 
blessed wdth the surroundings of plentv. 

His fame as a teacher soon became established, so that not only the 
first families of the city, but many prominent men from the neighboring 



EI.IHU II. SHEPARD. 363 

States, sent their sons to receive the benefits of his erudition and 
knowledge. He was happ}- in a frug-al wife, who fostered their re- 
sources, and who herself became well known as a preceptress, and for 
twelve years assisted her husband in their private schools. In 1837 he 
was elected justice of the peace for St. Louis Township, which office 
he filled for four 3'ears. 

In 1846, although well advanced in life — being then in his fift3--tirst 
3"ear — he volunteered in the St. Louis Gre3's, to take part in the Mexi- 
can war. But this was merelv for a six months' campaign, and upon 
the mustering out of the Greys, he raised a company of his own for the 
war. The compan}" was mustered into the service, and did good work 
during the balance of the war in Mexico. 

Some time after this, Mr. Shepard purchased an estate at Kaolin, 
in Iron Count}', Missouri. This he has since made a magnificent sum- 
mer residence : and here, in the midst of plenty, he has passed man^' 
years in peace and quiet before the breaking out of the civil war in 
1861. General Lyon, w^ho had command at St. Louis, offered Mr. 
Shepard a position of trust and responsibility, but his extreme age — 
being then in his sixty-sixth 3'ear — prevented him from accepting any- 
thing of the kind. On the loth of May 1861, Mr. Shepard had been 
taken prisoner at Camp Jackson and confined in the St. Louis Arsenal, 
but subsequentl}' signed his parole. In July, Governor Claiborne 
Jackson sent him a commission as paymaster, which, however, he 
declined. He was also offered a Colonel's commission, ^^'hich he also 
declined, stating his reasons for so doing. 

After Mr. Shepard w^as paroled in St. Louis, he returned to his sum- 
mer residence at Kaolin, a retired place, deep in the recesses of the 
forests, hoping that he might there repose in quietude, and that his old 
age might be a protection against the evil-disposed of both parties. But 
in this he was mistaken. Robberies were perpetrated upon his premi- 
ses, and outrages committed b}' both parties, under the plea of "militaiy 
necessity," so that four years afterwards at the close of the war, he 
had not a hog, a horse or a sheep remaining on his farm of 5,000 acres. 
The dwelling houses and other large buildings had been destroyed, the 
fences swept aw^ajs and that which had been one of the most enchant- 
ing spots in the State of Missouri, laid waste and made a scene of deso- 
lation. Out of nineteen families who resided near him, but four 
remained at the close of the war. He was obliged to absent himself 
half the time during this reign of terror, to avoid being murdered by 



364 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

robbers and guerrillas, who infested that neighborhood from the com- 
mencement to the end of the war. 

In June 1864, Mrs. Shepard, his faithful companion during these long- 
vears, and through these many vicissitudes of- fortune, ended her long- 
and useful life. She was never a member of anv established Church,, 
but took the Holy Scriptures for her guide. 

In December 1866, being then in his seventy-second year, Mr. Shepard 
led to the altar his second wife, a lady in everyway qualified to fill such 
a position. In 1867, in company with his wife and two eldest daughters, 
Mr. Shepard sailed for Europe, and spent eleven months in visiting 
the principal cities and points of interest in the old world. His observa- 
tions upon European society and manners, contained in his memoirs, are 
ver}^ interesting and valuable as notes of foreign travel. 

In 1866, he was the prime mover in establishing the Missouri Histori- 
cal Society, a society which will last for ages ; and he has contributed 
some most valuable documents to its archives. 

No citizen has taken o-reater interest in the advancement of education 
than has Mr. Shepard. It has been the pride of his life. Some of the 
most pleasurable moments of his existence have been spent with his 
pupils, either while under his instruction or after the}' had entered upon 
the active duties of life. Few men have spent thirty years surrounded 
by such a large number of his former pupils as he has, and none ever 
had greater cause to rejoice at their virtuous and successful courses. 

Mr. Shepard still enjoys robust health, and is occasionally seen upon 
the streets of St. Louis, the object of universal respect wherever he goes. 
Mr. Shepard has compiled and published a history of St. Louis, from 
its earliest foundation : a work containing a fund of information and 
reliable data in the growth and progress of this great city. 




W'psleniKngraviiig Compam-of SlJxa 



^/^y /^uM. rV 




L^-'Jyl-^ 



JOSEPH L. STEPHENS. 



IN a State so comparatively young as Missouri, it is found that most 
of her prominent and successful men are immigrants from older 
commonwealths, where, however meagre may have been their 
•earlier advantages, they yet exceeded those of the struggling territory. 
To this rule, Joseph L. Stephens exhibits a bright and most striking- 
exception. A native Missourian, his family connections extend to Daniel 
Boone, David Crockett and Stephen Cole, those hardv pioneers who 
made themselves homes in the virgin forest, and handled those twin 
implements of civilization — the rifle and the axe — with equal determina- 
tion and skill. 

He was born in 1826, in Cooper count3% Missouri, where he still 
resides. His father, Lawrence C. Stephens, a native of Virginia, and 
bis mother, Margaret P. Moore, a native of North Carolina, were 
married in Cooper county, and were among the first settlers and most 
respected citizens of that part of the State. His father was a farmer, 
a man of far more than average ability, possessed of strong practical 
views and an aptitude for public affairs. The records of the State 
capitol show his course as a legislator while representing his district, 
and prove him to have been a man of substantial abilitv and good quali- 
fications, and to have possessed the confidence of his fellow-citizens. 
He filled various public offices in the gift of the people, in all of which 
he appears to have given general satisfaction. He died in 1873, in the 
seventy-sixth year of his age, leaving a widow and seven children, of 
whom Joseph was the second. 

In his youth he assisted his father upon the tarni, and attended the 
common school of the country'. Even while engaged in farm duties, he 
industriousl}- employed his leisure hours in study. Without entering 
upon the classics, he was yet fully sensible of the immediate and practi- 
cal value of a thorough English and literary' course, and therefore made 
•every endeavor to make his acquirements thorough and exact. His edu- 
cation was completed at the High School at Boonville, when he was 
found to be well versed in grammar, logic, ancient and modern histor}-, 



366 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

philosoph\', astrononi}', mathematics, and other English branches. He 
had, with an appreciation unusual in boys, stored his mind with much 
general information, such as he conceived would be most useful and 
pleasurable in his intercourse with those with whom his path of life 
would bring him in contact. 

In 1844, at the age of eighteen, he commenced the study of law in 
the office of John G. Miller — a man of superior attainments, and an able 
jurist, who had represented his district upon the floor of the United 
States Congress for two terms. To the study of his chosen profession, 
the young student applied himself with assiduity, occasionally inter- 
rupting his devotion to Blackstone and Kent, to engage in teaching in 
the public schools in the vicinity of his birth-place, sessions of which 
at that time rarely exceeded three months in the year. While yet a 
student, our country became involved in the Mexican war. In response 
to General Gaines" call for volunteers, he enlisted in a company which 
was raised in his count3^ The youngest in a company of one hundred 
and ten men, his popularity made him the unanimous choice for its 
captain. This compan\' was a portion of the force designed for the 
relief of General Taylor. It was mustered into United States service 
by Colonel Robert Campbell, and ordered to quarters at Jeflerson 
Barracks. While there dispatches conveyed the intelligence that Taylor 
had already been relieved, and his company was sent to Boonville. 
subject to orders. 

In 1847 he had completed his legal studies, and entered upon the 
practice of his profession with flattering success. Among the distin- 
guished members of the Boonville bar of that period, who are now 
hving, are Washington Adams, Benjamin Tompkins, J. W. Draflen, 
Emmett R. Hayden, William Douglas and John B. Clark, Sr. Its 
necrology includes the names of Peyton Hayden, Abiel Leonard, John 
G. Miller, John C. Richardson, and W. D. Muir. 

An earnest and forcible speaker, a close logician, and a profound 
thinker, as well as a hard student, Mr. Stephens soon commanded a 
widely extended and lucrative practice. In 1857, ^^^ became associated 
in practice with Hon. Geo. G. Vest, now of Sedalia, Mo., which part- 
nership continued until broken up by the war in 1861. Mr. Stephens 
afterwards became a member of the bar at the Court of Claims in 
Washington City, and at the Supreme Court of the United States, con- 
tinuing practice until 1864, when a painful and, it was feared, dangerous 
aflection of the throat, forced him, in compliance with medical advice, 
to abandon the vocation of his choice, in which he had spent over 



JOSEPH L. STEPHENS. ■ l^bj 

se\'enteen 3'ears, to which he was devotedly attached, and in which he 
had made an enviable reputation. 

Previous to the late war he had been a member ot the banking- house 
of William H. Trigg & Co., of Boonville, Mo., a house doing an 
extensive business in Central Missouri, which closed and divided its 
capital stock on account of the war. Mr. Stephens had taken no per- 
sonal part in the management further than that of adviser and attorne^■. 
In the year 1864, he opened a private banking house in Boonville, and 
the year following organized the Central National Bank, one of the 
most successfully and honorably conducted banking institutions in the 
State. 

A stern opponent of the Drake Constitution, Mr. Stephens in 1866, for 
the first and only time in his life, became a candidate before the people for 
an elective office. He made the canvass of Cooper, Morgan and Mon- 
iteau counties for the State Senate, and at the election ran ahead of his 
ticket. Owing to the proscriptive system of registration which then 
prevailed, he was defeated by Geo. W. Boardman, at that time Register 
of the United States Land Office. 

In 1872, Mr. Stephens was one of the most prominent of the candi- 
dates for Governor of the State before the Democratic Convention 
which eventually nominated Mr. Woodson. His real strength was con- 
ceded to be unsurpassed b}' that of any other individual, but by one of 
those unaccountable stampedes that sometimes afflict conventions, the 
choice fell upon the latter, and resulted in his election. 

Since that time he has confined his attention entirely to his bank, 
which, under his superior management, is one of the leading financial 
institutions in the State. During the late disastrous panic, the accuracv 
of its management and its stability were fully tested. 

Mr. Stephens was married in 1853, to Miss Martha Gibson, of Boon- 
ville, a lady of education and refinement. They have been blessed with 
a family of seven children — four sons and three daughters. 

He is a Democrat of the old school, though not a bitter partisan : a 
cultivated gentleman of a high order of intellect, superior business attain- 
ments, and an able lawyer. In financial afiairs his experience has been 
extensive, inuring to the benefit of himself and of his section. His 
genial and winning manners, and his rare generosity, have drawn to him 
friends from all portions of Missouri, and he is one of the few men 
who, without a rival in popularity, and practical and social influence in 
his own immediate section, can truthfully boast that be has not a single 



368 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

tinemy in the State. He is still in the pride of manly vigor and health, 
and his usefulness and influence is unceasingly expanding. 

Born, raised and educated in Missouri, the years of his active life 
have been devoted to her interests and the development of her 
resources. His application, sound judgment and generous attributes 
have conspired to give him high rank as a lawyer, a financier, and a 
citizen. Though never holding a distinguished public position, his 
virtues and abilities have marked him as one of the best and truest 
characters in the State, and one who must occupy a conspicuous place 
in her historv. 



JOHN K. CUMMINGS. 



IT may be truly said that one of the great industries of St. Louis 
owes its foundation and subsequent development to the subject of 
this sketch. Although Mr. Cummings had been preceded in the 
manufacture of glass by numerous venturesome pioneers, yet he was the 
tirst to make the business permanent and stable. The field was one in 
which only an unbroken line of disastrous failures preceded him, vet bv 
the application of correct business principles, combined with admirable 
skill and engaging personal qualities, he was enabled to roll back the 
tide and establish, beyond question, the superiority of Missouri in a 
branch of manufacture which, perhaps more than any other, demands 
skillful and liberal management. That his success brought him fortune 
is one of those examples of practical justice which are unfortunately too 
rare. That with the increase of his opportunities he should have 
exhibited a spirit of the widest liberality, conferred benefits upon all 
associated with him, and upon the cit}' with which he is so thoroughlv 
identified in feeling and interest, is a fact that cannot be too strongh' 
stated when illustrating the progress of St. Louis, and seeking for the 
causes of its vitalitv. 

He was born in Coleraine, count}' of Londonderry, Ireland, but was 
raised in Belfast. His father, who had been steward on a vessel plying 
between the ports of Liverpool and Belfast, and a clerk in a banking- 
house in the latter place, left him an orphan at the age of fourteen. 
His mother had died the preceding year. The lad, who had acquired 
a rudimentarv education in the schools of the country, then pursued for 
some time a constantly shifting fortune. He was first apprenticed to a 
tailor, but left that business in a few months. He worked in Edinburg. 
Scotland, in a soda-water factory ; clerked in a grocer}' store ; worked 
at making wall paper, and in the making of the celebrated Belfast 
ginger ale, and all with that success, or rather lack of it, that usualh' 
attends friendless boys. 

In 1854, ^*^ came to i\merica by sailing vessel, landed in New 
Orleans, and soon made his wav to St. Louis. The steamer on which 



370 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

he came up the river, was the old boat named in honor of the city — the 
"Saint Louis." His first employment here was in the pork-house of 
Mr. Ames, where he remained for about a year. From there he went 
to the glass factory which he now owns. Commencing in the packing 
room he worked through all the gradations of the business, as laborer, 
glass-cutter, mold-maker, engineer, boss packer and salesman. 

When the first call for troops was made in Missouri he enlisted as a 
private soldier, but was soon appointed Adjutant of the Fifth Regiment 
U. S. Reserve Corps. The appointment was made by Colonel Steifel 
because he found Mr. Cummings a competent drill-master. This 
knowledge he had acquired while serving in the Sarsfield Guards, a 
volunteer company that marched to Kansas before the war. The 
troops of which the Fifth Reserve Corps formed a part, participated in 
the earlier military operations along the Missouri river, reaching General 
L3^on immediately after the battle of Booneville. Thev assisted in the 
construction of the fortifications around Lexington, Missouri, and 
remained in service months after their term of enlistment had expired. 
Subsequently he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twentieth 
E. M. M., b}' Governor Gamble. 

The permanence and success of the glass interest in St. Louis may 
be said to date from 1861, when he, with Mr. Joseph Bagot, formed a 
copartnership for the purpose of carrying on the manufacture of glass 
at the old place. Previous to this Mr. Bagot had been manager of the 
St. Louis Glass Works (which is the distinctive name the establishment 
still bears) for Dr. Scollay, and for different owners who preceded him. 
Mr. Bagot was a sound, practical and skillful man who took charge of 
the manufacturing department, and Mr. Cummings managed the books 
and financial part of the business. From this time forward it became 
apparent that the unexampled resources of Missouri for the manufacture 
of an article so essential to the daily life of our people, were to be 
brought into action and made a source of profit. The difficulties were 
indeed numerous, but not, as the event proved, insurmountable. Mr. 
Bagot was a practical and careful glassmaker, and, besides attending to 
his other duties in the management of the internal atlairs, made the pots 
with his own hands. The making of the pots is a department upon 
which too much care cannot be bestowed. If defective, they entail a 
serious loss ; if inferior, they must be renewed too often, and at too 
great an expense for profit. The very best clay for the purpose is 
found in Missouri, and it only became necessary to apply the needed 
skill in their manufacture. At this period Mr. Cummings, in connec- 



JOHN K. CUMMIN(JS. 37 1 

tion with that part of the business of which he had charge, attended to 
the buying and selHng, and might often be seen in distant parts of the 
city looking up customers until the stores closed. At this time, how- 
ever, they closed too early to suit him, as he found that the blinds 
would go up before he could get through. 

In 1868 Mr. Bagot died, and Mr. Cummings became sole proprietor. 
When the partnership was formed, the joint capital of the partners was 
less than two thousand dollars ; when Mr. Bairot died, Mr. Cum- 
mings, as surviving partner, paid to his wife and children over seven- 
teen thousand dollars for his half of the interest. The success which 
had been thus inaugurated continued to increase under Mr. Cummings' 
efforts, and afforded a striking confirmation of the correctness of the 
views he had stated of the value of the resources of Missouri, and the 
facilities afforded by St. Louis in this particular industry. 

No adequate presentation of the history of glass manufacture in St. 
Louis can be written without according to John K. Cummings the credit 
of being the first successful pioneer. He has demonstrated that the raw 
material found here is second to none in the world, and that its manu- 
factiu'e pays a Hberal profit. He has made no secret of his success, 
but at public meetings for the consideration of manufacturing here, has 
set forth the advantages to be derived, and has inforced his arofuments 
with facts from his own experience. He has offered assistance to par- 
ties contemplating the starting of new works, and is a prominent stock- 
holder in the St. Louis Window Glass Company. 

In presenting the advantages of St. Louis, and encouraging others, 
he has been especialh* prominent. Toward public enterprises that 
promised beneficial results to the cit}', his course has been one of 
marked liberality. In such affairs he has subordinated individual inter- 
ests to public good. So actuated, he took stock in the Illinois and St. 
Louis Railroad and Coal Company, Cahokia Ferry Company, Mer- 
chants' Exchange, Grain Association, and other useful public enter- 
prises in which the profit on the investment is a secondary consideration. 
When questions of public improvement are agitated, he is ever found 
practical and original in council, and a liberal subscriber. He is now a 
director in the Butchers and Drovers' Bank, and in a number of organ- 
izations laboring for the public weal. 

He was married in 1862, to Miss Annie M. Mullin, a native of the 
same town as himself. In 1871, thev revisited their birth-place, and 
spent some time traveling in Great Britain and on the continent. 

The lesson of his business career is a bright one. To thorough 



372 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



capacity, he unites personal qualities that secure him the respect of all 
with whom he comes in contact — especially of his employees. These 
have always shown a devotion to his interests rarely accorded to the 
employer. He has also raised up and educated a class of resident 
laborers, whose skill plays a very important part in the manufacturing 
industry he founded. 

Beyond the honor of having been the founder of a great industry, in 
itself a prolific source of wealth, it must be said of John K. Cummings 
that he is a self-respecting and respected citizen, of able and liberal 
^•iews, correct in judgment, and unselfish in policy, and that he has 
already contributed, in an important degree, to the prosperity of our 
A\'estern metropolis. 



ISAAC COOK. 



ISAAC COOK, president of the American Wine Company, now 
thoroughly identified in thought and interest with St. Louis, exhibits 
in his career a rare combination of self-possession and energ3^ 

He was born in New Jersey, July 4, 181 3. His father was a farmer 
of small means, and the boy's opportunities for education were confined 
to the facilities to be found in a countr}^ school. When eleven years of 
age, he went to New York and engaged as a clerk in a grocery store at 
a very moderate salary. Here he remained for four years, and by 
watchful attentiveness familiarized himself with the details of business, 
and acquired the habit of rapidly forming opinions and acting promptly 
upon the dictates of his judgment. At the early age of fifteen, he com- 
menced business on his own account, keeping a hotel in the city of New 
York, and continuing for two years. 

The opportunities which the West then held out for youth, enterprise 
and energy, tempted him to seek a newer and less crowded field for his 
activity. Having accumulated a capital of a thousand dollars, he started 
west b}^ the way of Pittsburg and St. Louis, and spent some time in 
traveling through the West and South, until he finally settled in Chicago 
in 1834. Soon after his arrival in Chicago he put up a building, and 
opened a hotel and restaurant, continuing in that business a few years, 
and in the meantime making an extended and favorable acquaintance, 
which, together with his agreeable manners and predilection for an active 
life, led him into the field of poHtics. The West at that time offered 
unusual opportunities for the success of young and aspiring politicians, 
who were at the same time gifted with perseverance and ability. Mr. 
Cook was a Democrat, and throughout his whole political career was 
consistent and uncompromising. 

In 1838, when Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate for election from 
the Springfield district, Mr. Cook w^as among his warmest and ablest 
supporters. Mr. Douglas was, however, beaten in that canvass b}- John 
F. Stewart, by a small majority, though he was destined to see his star 
shine the brighter for its partial eclipse. The State of Illinois soon 



374 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

became converted from Whiggery to Democracy, and in 1844 Mr. 
Cook was appointed by Governor Ford State agent for the canal lands, 
and continued in that office for four years. He was then elected sherift' 
and treasurer of Cook county, and tilled that responsible position for 
two terms of two years each. 

In 1852, he was appointed postmaster of Chicago b}- President Pierce, 
and held that office during Pierce's administration. At the accession of 
Buchanan, a change was made in the office by the appointment of Mr. 
Price. This change, however, failed to give satisfaction, and Mr. Cook 
was re-appointed by President Buchanan, and held the office during the 
last three years of that presidential term. 

On the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency, the threatened 
political revolution was complete. It was apparent to Mr. Cook that 
new men, inspired by a policv in conflict with his own, were for a time to 
assume the responsibilities and trials in which he had himself taken so 
important a part, and he retired definitely from political life. Through- 
out the struggle in which he had been so stubborn an opponent, he had 
ever been unflinching and self-possessed in his advocacy of the polic}' 
upon which he had fixed, and rode to success through unflinching per- 
tinacity. Though he retired from politics, his influence was still felt in 
schemes for the production of valuable public improvements. He 
secured the appropriation for the new post-office at Chicago, and did 
a great deal toward improving her parks and public institutions. 

During the turmoil of his official life, in 1859 he was elected presi- 
dent of the American Wine Compan3^ In 1862 he removed perma- 
nently to St. Louis, and determined to realize the possibilities which 
the culture of the grape and manufacture of wine in Missouri seemed to 
promise. It was a field that offered rich harvests, yet required perse- 
verance, energy, skill and capital to make productive. Missouri, as a 
wine-producing State, had yet a reputation to make, and this could 
only be done by putting her productions upon the market in sufficient 
quantity and of a uniformly high standard. This was the labor 
which Mr. Cook marked out for the American Wine Company, and one 
which, by the use of ample capital and the exercise of liberality and 
business enterprise, he soon succeeded in accomplishing. At the 
World's Fairs held in Paris and Vienna, the experts of Continental 
Europe have united in testimonials to the superior excellence of the 
wine of the American Wine Company . To these proofs of merit, how- 
ever, have been added the marks of substantial favor and patronage 
which are evinced by the demand for the wine in the principal markets 



ISAAC COOK. 375 

of Europe. The Company is the largest of its kind in the United 
States, controlling vast properties, managing each detail of manufacture 
with the utmost care and with exquisite skill, and sending its products 
to every part of the world. The brand of sparkling wine known as 
" Imperial," enjoys a world-wide fame at once creditable to Missouri 
and honorable to the company originating it. Connoisseurs of ever}- 
nationality have expressed for it their unqualified approbation, and 
princel}' criticism has declared it justly entitled to its " imperial " name 
and fame. 

The achievement of such a work is well worthy of the labor bestowed 
upon it, and it reflects the highest credit upon the sagacity and energy- 
with which Mr. Cook has managed the aflairs so unqualifiedly intrusted 
to him. 



T. B. EDGAR. 



/ I (he record of the life of Timothy B. Edgar is full of instruc- 
I tion to the youth of our land. It carries with it the lesson, that 
the faithful and unflinching discharge of duty in every relation of 
life, produces in the end the flower of perfect manhood, as surely as the 
dew and sunshine of the summer bring forth the ripened fruit. The 
history is of the simple and unambitious eflbrt of one who, keenh' 
sensitive of the rights and feelings of others, performed the duties of 
each day with conscientious care, and trusted to the endless tide of 
events for justification and success. The result is an honorable position, 
such as vanity and ambition may strive after in vain. Honors and 
successes follow unsought in the path of such a life, but through all runs- 
the self-consciousness of usefulness and rectitude — worth more than 
all the rest. 

He was born in New Jersey, January 20, 1815. His father was a 
carpenter, of Scotch extraction. After acquiring such education as the 
common schools of the day aflbrded, he went to learn the carriage- 
making business in the city of Newark, in his native State. Before he 
was of age, another party offered him a partnership, but his old 
employer suggested a more desirable change, and at his solicitation he 
went to New Orleans to take charge of a carriage repositor}^ in that 
city. On his way to the South, he passed through St. Louis, and 
was much pleased with the city. On arrival in New Orleans, he 
found that he was by no means favorabl}^ impressed with that city ; 
and he made up his mind to return to St. Louis and make it his home 
as soon as he was of age. Leaving New Orleans in a sailing vessel, he 
arrived in New York in December of 1835 — ^^^ memorable year of the 
great fire. In the following spring he came to St. Louis to make this 
his permanent home. Here he opened a carriage shop and repository » 
at the corner of Fourth and Morgan streets, and continued there till 
he sold out in 1855. The first stage coaches ever built in Missouri 
were built by him for Colonel Thomas L. Price, and run on lines ex- 
tending from St. Louis westward. They were of the style known as 
"Troy coaches," and served the purpose of the ante-railroad period. 



378 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

About the time that he sold out his carriage interests, the old Dollar 
Savings Institution was converted into the Exchange Bank, and Mr. 
Edgar, as one of the leading spirits, gave that his undivided attention. 
From this period dates his history as a banker, with which important 
branch of commerce he has ever since been identified, and in which he 
has won the unqualified respect and esteem of our entire community. 
Under the National Banking Act, he was instrumental in starting the 
Second National Bank, and was for years the president of that institu- 
tion. During the war, he applied himself by ever}- means to relieve the 
burdens of our people, and was one of the committee appointed by 
the Merchants' Exchange to proceed to Washington, to try and secure 
payment of the Government vouchers which had accumulated here. 
About fifteen million dollars of these vouchers were held in this cit}', 
and they were at a discount of from ten to twenty per cent., while the 
community was suft'ering from the lack of currency. It was a difficult 
and delicate mission, yet it was carried to a successful issue, and a 
satisfactory adjustment was brought about through the presentation of 
the case to Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury ; though there were 
many prejudices to be overcome in his mind. After the allowance of 
the claims, certificates of indebtedness, payable in bonds, under an 
agreement to hold them for a certain period, were issued. This stipu- 
lation in the settlement was, however, soon withdrawn, and the transac- 
tion was complete. Mr. Edgar was also chairman of the War Relief 
Committee, and managed the large disbursements that the position 
involved, with universal satisfaction, and a degree of accuracy that 
seemed impossible. When General Fremont made a request for one 
hundred thousand dollars in gold to pa}" for ordnance, Mr. Edgar took 
the ground that it was the duty, not only of private citizens, but of 
banking institutions too, to strengthen the power of the Government, 
and through his influence the money was furnished. The informality 
of the voucher which he received from General Fremont, necessitated 
another trip to Washington, but an equitable settlement was at last 
made. 

At the return of peace, Mr. Edgar found that he disagreed with 
other officers of the bank as to the line of policy to be pursued, when 
he resigned and made a trip to Europe, spending most of his time upon 
the continent. 

In 1867 he started the Continental Bank, under the name of the 
National Loan Bank, and became its president. The construction 
^iven the national banking law demanded the elimination of the word 



T. B. EDGAR. 379 

"National," and the present name of "Continental" was adopted. He 
was for some years one of the leaders in the Provident Association, and 
has given some attention to insurance and some to manufacturing. As 
a promoter of manufacturing projects, his efforts, though not unitbrmly 
successful pecuniarily, have been highly advantageous to the interests of 
our State. When zinc works were tirst started in Carondelet, he 
became a stockholder and promoter, and contributed in a considerable 
measure to give that industry its present prominence. He was one of a 
company to build a cotton mill at Springfield, Missouri, now in charge 
of his son, and gave it a substantial basis for success. Other manufac- 
turing enterprises have received his encouragement and support, and 
his investments in such objects would, if aggregated, reach into 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. On his return from Europe he 
became a director in the Pacific Railroad, and in 1873-4 was president 
of that great corporation. 

During an exceptionally long period of active business life, Mr. Edgar 
has had what might be called an unbroken success. He has been the 
custodian of the money of individuals and of corporations to a very 
large amount, ever}- dollar of which has been satisfactoril}- accounted 
for. All through his life he has received the merited commendation 
and sincere respect of all who know him, or his deeds. Unambitious 
of mere popular regard, he yet won the admiration of a people who 
cannot but speak his name kindly, and with warm encomium upon 
virtues that were unostentatious, yet none the less apparent. 



ELISHA HALL GREGORY, M.D. 



^y To man in the medical profession in St. Louis is better known or 
^ more respected as a citizen and accomplished surgeon than Dr. E. 
:' H. Gregory, and none has more honestl}- earned the reputation 
which he enjoys than he, for he has not gotten it by fortuitous circum- 
stances, but b}' constant study, and laborious mental and physical work. 
For more than thirt}' years his constant aim has been to increase his 
knowledge of the science of medicine and surger}-, and for the past 
fifteen 3'ears he has been reaping the benefits of his labor through a 
large and lucrative practice. 

He was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, September loth, 1824, and 
was the fourth of a family of eight children. His parents, originally 
from Fredericksburg, Virginia, were of Scotch ancestr}". His father 
was a lawyer, and migrated to Boonville, Missouri, in 1832, and four 
years later moved to Liberty. He is now, and has been for many 
years, a resident of our city. At the age of twelve, having mastered 
the rudiments of English, and gained the ordinary acquirements of a 
boy, he was placed in a printing office, and most of his time for the 
next five years was spent in Liberty and Jeflerson City in learning " the 
art preservative of arts." Two years of this time he was engaged in 
the office of the Jefterson Inquire?'^ conducted by E. L. Edwards and 
John McCuUach, the former then a prominent law3'er, and since a judge 
in this State. 

In 1 841 he began the study of medicine in Boonville, Missouri, with 
Dr. F. W. G. Thomas, of that place. After two years of hard study 
he attended lectures in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 3'ears 1843 and 
1844, and then settled at Mr. John Jameson's, near Syracuse, in Mor- 
gan county, Missouri, as a medical practitioner. Five ^^ears later, he 
attended lectures in the medical department of the St. Louis Univer- 
sit}', and graduated from that institution in the spring of 1849. 

He was married to Miss Joel Smallwood April 15, 1845, and has now 
a family of twelve children. 

After his graduation from the St. Louis University in 1844, he estab- 



382 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

lished himself here in the practice of medicine, and has since pursued 
a noble and successful career. His name has become synonymous with 
the highest order of medical skill, and carries with it a weight — socially 
and professionally — that attests his innate strength and extensive culture. 
He became connected with the St. Louis Medical College, then sepa- 
rated from the University, in 1852, as demonstrator of anatomy. He 
held that position for fourteen years ; and now occupies the chair for- 
merly tilled by Dr. Pope, that of professor of the theory and practice 
of surgery. He has also been for many 3^ears surgeon of the St. Louis 
Hospital, more familiarly known as the "Sisters' Hospital," now located 
on the corner of Montgomery street and Grand avenue. He has been 
to Europe twice, once in 1864 and again in 1872, to inspect the hospitals 
there and to investigate the methods of treatment, hoping to attain some 
improvement. 

Thus we see that he has been for twenty-three years an expounder of 
medical science in an institution second to none in the West, and has, at 
the same time, acquired great reputation as a practitioner of surgery and 
medicine. He is a representative of that school which, while eager for 
improvement, is yet tenacious of all that experience has tested and 
approved : and whilst his marked modesty always makes him a wilHng 
listener and anxious student, he never fails to investigate for himself 
before he subscribes to ideas that he does not exactly approve. He is 
thus, in a practical way, (and all his studies have been in that direction ) 
an original and sometimes very pecuHar thinker and investigator. 

His strong mind, originality of thought, oneness of purpose and per- 
severing industry have made him what he is, and gained for him the 
universal confidence, friendship and regard of his compeers, and 
induced them to welcome him as a most efficient co-laborer in the army 
of medical progress. 

For more than half a century medical men have been bold enough to 
doubt and question the truth and correctness of many things believed 
and taught by their predecessors, and, with all due respect for their 
teachings, to leave each member unfettered in his individual judgment — 
free to cull and to adopt from the teachings of others such facts and 
theories as comported with their own ideas of truth, and equalh' as free 
to reject those which they could not understand, or which did not con- 
form to their own ideas. To this ever-vigilant spirit of inquir}', per- 
haps more than to any other cause, are we indebted to the medical 
profession for the principal discoveries in physical science. For more 
than fifty years, a continuous and searching inquiry has been going 



ELISHA HALL GREGORY, M.U. 383 

on in every tield of science which offered the shghtest inducements 
to the searchers after truth ; and to the fact that medical men have 
been the most independent and active investigators, we must attribute 
the wonderful progress in the science of medicine and the vast ad- 
ditions made to our stock of real knowledge. Every one of moderate 
abilities has it in his power to add something to the general fund and 
to make himself honorablv known to the profession, and its history a 
part of his own : but he cannot accomplish this without industry, labor. 
and accurate observation. The time is past when any one man can 
master the profession of medicine in all its details, and become so per- 
fect in every branch as to be facile princess. We cannot accord 
unquestioned superiority to any one unless it be in some special depart- 
ment — some restricted branch of the science to which he has devoted 
most of his time. In earlier days, the men who had their names inscribed 
upon the imperishable roll of fame, to be read by all, were invariably 
men of grand abilities, who were able to breast the storms of adversitv 
which overwhelmed the weak, and to occupy such commanding posi- 
tions as would claim the homage and respect of every one. To-day the 
field of science is so much greater, that men who know live times a& 
much as their predecessors are not accorded that indisputable supe- 
riority. 

The subject of this sketch has never arrogated any extraordinary 
abilities, but has gone on steadily and patiently doing what he deemed 
to be be his duty to himself, to his profession and to suffering humanit}*, 
until he has built up a reputation much more extensive and lasting than 
many of his compeers, who imagine themselves his superior. He has 
not been a prolific writer, but whatever he has published, or whatever 
has been reported by others for him has been sensible, instructive and 
worthy of record. A few years ago, a number of his clinical lectures 
on special diseases attracted much attention as they were published b}' 
one of his students, in the St. Louis Medical journal. He has always 
taken an active part in the discussions before the St. Louis Medical 
Society, as the printed reports show, and his abilities have been, 
acknowledged by that body, as well as by the Missouri State Medical 
Association, by elevating him to the presidency of each society. He 
has also for many years been a member of the St. Louis Academy ot* 
Sciences and the American Medical Association. His principal field 
of work, however, has been in connection with the St. Louis Medical 
College, the leading medical college of the West, with which institution 
he has earnestly and faithfully labored for nearly a quarter of a century. 



384 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to the entire satisfaction of his colleagues in the faculty, as well as to 
the hundreds of students who have profited by his teachings. As a 
medical lecturer he is practical, lucid and eloquent : never worrying 
the student with uninteresting and unimportant details, but by his 
simplicity of manner and earnestness of speech, impressing indelibly 
upon every intelligent and attentive student all the important points 
necessary to be remembered. Without an}^ effort at oratory, his 
thorough acquaintance wdth surgery and his devotion to duty make 
him an eloquent and pleasing speaker and most admirable teacher. 
As a surgeon he ranks among the very first; he is cool, collected, 
deliberate, and very careful in the performance of every operation, and 
never allows his ambition to get the better of his judgment. Ready in 
his resources, and unimpassioned in his work, he is prepared to meet 
every emergency, and capable of overcoming difiiculties which would 
be insurmountable to more impulsive men. That his career has been a 
most successful one so far, no one acquainted with him can doubt : and 
that he has acted his part honestly and faithfull}-, his connection for 
nearly twenty-five years with the St. Louis Medical College and the 
Sisters' Hospital fully attest. 




^ 

4 
/ 




oc(a^ 



^^^^ 



THOMAS H. BENTON 



/ I \HE glory which attaches to the history of the United States for 
J- the first half of the present century, was achieved by the power 
and influence of a few of her statesmen. They moulded public 
opinion, led at will the masses, dictated policies, and gave character 
abroad to the American name. Individual influence in the future will 
not be so great afs in the period mentioned. Inventors, men of science, 
commercial lords, railroad magnates, public teachers, agriculturists, 
and skilled mechanics lead to-da}', and will direct public thought, and 
hold the power in the America of the future. Education is becoming 
general. Political, social and scientific questions are discussed on the 
farm, in the workshop, and ever3'where. The people need not a few 
men to do their thinking for them — they can think for themselves. 
Hence, cases of individual greatness may not be as frequent in the 
future as in the past, since the people have become great. But now and 
then we may expect some giant in intellect to tower above all the rest, 
and shed glory around him — 

" As some tall clift", that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale and midwaj' leaves the storm ; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

Thomas Hart Benton would have been a great man in any age. 
Nature had, in an eminent degree, endowed him with those gifts which 
those born to command always possess, and in the course of a long and 
active life he had cultivated and developed these natural powers to the 
highest degree. 

This distiuH'uished citizen of St. Louis, who shed lustre on the State 
and nation, was born near Hillsborough, Orange county. North Caro- 
lina, March 14, 1782. When he was eight 3^ears old his father died, 
and his mother was not able to provide for him such means for 
education as she desired. In the course of a year or two, hoAvever, he 
•was placed in a grammar school, where he made fair progress. Subse- 



386 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

quently he went to Chapel Hill, the State University of North Carolina, 
but did not complete a regular course, as his mother moved to Tennes- 
see to cultivate a tract of land left by her husband. But Thomas had 
no taste for farming. He was fond of reading such books as came in 
his wav, and seemed desirous of adopting one of the learned professions. 
An opportunity was offered for him to study law, and he embraced it. 
Entering upon the practice of the profession he had chosen, he soon 
gained a lucrative business, and arose to eminence. He was elected to 
the Legislature, serving a single term, but during the time, he procured 
the passage of a law reforming the judicial system, and of another giving 
to slaves the benefit of a jur}- trial, the same as white men. It was at 
this time that Benton became acquainted with Andrew Jackson. The 
latter was a judge of the State Supreme Court, and subsequentl}^ Major- 
General of the State militia. Benton became his Aide-de-Camp, and 
durino- the war with Encjland, raised a regiment of volunteers. It was 
from this service that he derived the title of Colonel, which clung to him 
through Hfe. The intimacy between Jackson and Benton became very 
close, and continued so until a sudden rupture occurred which endan- 
gered the lives of both, and estranged them for many years. The 
story of this quarrel is thus related by a biographer of General Jackson : 

Colonel Benton had a brother named Je,5se, who became involved in a quarrel with 
William (afterward General) Carroll, one of Jackson's intimate friends. The latter clial- 
lenged Jesse Benton to a duel, and asked Jackson to be his second, which he declined 
until Carroll told him there was a conspiracy "to run him (Cai-roll) out of the country," 
when he resolved to interfere, partly from indignation, but more from the desire to prevent 
a fight. At first, he was successful in his remonstrances with Jesse Benton, but the latter 
finally resolved that the duel should go on. Jackson acted as Carroll's second. Benton 
sent an offensive account of the affair to his brother Thomas, who was in Washington 
attending to some business for Jackson. Others, enemies of General Jackson, sent similar 
accounts. This led to an angry correspondence between Jackson and Colonel Benton, 
and the latter made use of the harshest language in speaking of the former, all of which 
was reported to the General, who threatened he would horsewhip the Colonel the first 
time they should meet. On September 4, 1813, General Jackson, accompanied by Colonel 
Coftee, met the Bentons in the streets of Nashville. Bidding him defend himself, and 
avowing his purpose, Jackson advanced upon Colonel Benton, who sought to draw a 
pittol, but was anticipated by his antagonist, who drew such a weapon and aimed at him. 
Benton retreated, and Jackson followed him, until they reached the back door of the City 
Hotel, when Jesse Benton fired at Jackson, shattering his left shoulder, the pistol being 
charged with two balls and a slug. Jackson fell; and Coftee, who entered on hearing the 
report, fired at Colonel Benton, but missed his aim. He was then about to strike down 
the Colonel, when the latter stumbled down a stair-case. Meantime, Mr. S. Ilays, a 
nephew of Mrs. Jackson, who knew that it was Jesse Benton that fired at the General, 
volunteered in his relative's behalf, and a fierce conflict ensued between him and Jesse, he 
making use of a sword-cane first and then of a dirk, and throwing him down. Benton 
was wounded in several places, and would have been killed had not a bystander caught 
Hays' hand. Jackson suffered severely from this combat. It caused permanent injury to 
his body, and was the cause of much discussion for many years. 



THOMAS II. HKNTON. 387 

A reconciliation between Jackson and Benton was effected in after 
years, but they were never intimate friends as before. 

After the volunteer militia was disbanded, President Madison ap- 
pointed Colonel Benton, in 1813, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, but 
on his way to serve in Canada a year or two later, he heard the news 
of peace, and resigned. Shortly afterward he removed to Missouri, 
and took up his residence in St. Louis. Opening a law office, it was 
not long before he had fully established himself in practice. 

Politics, however, claimed his attention, and he could not long remain 
silent. He established a newspaper called the ''Missouri Inquirer,'' 
and was not long in making known his sentiments. His strong language 
and decided opinions frequently led to fierce altercadons, disputes, and 
sometimes to personal encounters. Duels were usual at this time, and in 
one of them, which was forced upon him, he killed his opponent, 
Mr. Lucas, an event he deeply regretted, and all the private papers 
relating to which he destroyed before his death. 

Colonel Benton's paper took a strong and vigorous stand in favor of 
the admission of Missouri, notwithstanding her slavery Constitution. 
His services were rewarded by a seat in the United States Senate, to 
which he was elected by the Legislature in September 1820. This 
was the first General Assembly under the Constitution, and it met in St. 
Louis, at the corner of Main and Green streets, in the building known 
as the "Missouri Hotel," long since demolished. The assembly was 
composed of fourteen Senators, and forty-three Representatives. Mr. 
Benton's colleague in the Senate was David Barton, an eminent man, 
who had borne a prominent part in shaping the course of the new- 
State, and was president of the Convendon which met to form a State 
Constitution. 

The public life of Colonel Benton, so far as his influence in Missouri 
was felt, may be said to date from 1820. He was at this time in the 
prime of life, possessing a vigorous intellect, of large and liberal 
culture, an assiduous student, industrious, resolute, temperate, and 
endowed with a memory whose tenacity was marvelous. He soon 
placed himself in the front rank of those who shaped the councils of 
the nation. One of his biographers says : 

"As a representative of" the West, with manifold interests of a frontier population 
intrusted to his care, Colonel Benton forthwith devoted himself to securing a reform in 
the land system of the General Government. A pioneer himself in early life, he sympa- 
thized with the demands of that class, and his familiarity with the administration of 
government taught him how fallacious and suicidal was the policy of attempting to 
derive a revenue from such a source. The general distress which prevailed throughout 



388 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

he country in 1S20, and which bore with especial hardship upon the land purchasers of 
the West, attracted attention to this subject, and afforded cause for the initiative which 
was taken by Congress in liberalizing the system." 

Measures for relief were offered, changing all future sales to a cash 
basis, and reducing the price, besides giving other advantages to actual 
settlers. Colonel Benton apprehended the full scope of these changes, 
and determined to persist in urging them until they should be accom- 
plished. From 1824 to 1828, therefore, he made special efforts for 
such amelioration of the entire system. A bill embracing these feat- 
ures was moved b}- him, and renewed annuall3% until it at last took 
hold upon the public mind. His speeches at first attracted more atten- 
tion throughout the country than in Congress, for there his efforts were 
counteracted by schemes for dividing the public lands or the proceeds 
of their sales among the States. He became a firm supporter of the 
administration of President Jackson, and this gave him great weight 
with the party in power. He was thus enabled so far to impress his 
views upon the President that they were embodied in one of his mes- 
sages, and from that date the ultimate triumph of land reform became 
only a question of time. 

In Missouri there were large quantities of saline and mineral lands, 
which it had been the object of the Government to withdraw from sale 
and farm out. This injurious monopoh' was also aimed at in his meas- 
ures, and he succeeded in efiecting a change which threw all open to 
occupancy. 

Moved b}' considerations of public interest, he made eftbrts, during 
the first term of his senatorial service, to effect a repeal of the imposts 
upon all necessaries of life. These duties bore with great hardship 
upon the population of the Mississippi Valley. It was a tribute levied 
upon them in part to sustain government and in part to protect special 
interests. In some cases, this was most unequal as well as oppressive, 
the salt tax, for instance, meeting with more hostilit}' than any other. 

During the session of i829-'30. Colonel Benton delivered the first 
elaborate argument against this burden upon a prime necessity, and 
afterward followed it up in such a manner as to effect its repeal. 
Colonel Benton was also prominent in directing adventure to explora- 
tion in the Far West ; in fixing the attention of the Government upon 
the earl}' occupancy of the mouth of the Columbia River, and in en- 
couraging overland transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He had 
given much thought and study to these subjects, and no sooner had he 
taken his seat in the Senate than he made direct eftbrts to engage Con- 
gress and the public in the great enterprise. It will thus be seen that 



THOMAS H. BENTON. 389 

Colonel Benton became, almost at the outset of his career, the exponent 
of Western interests, and though largely participating in all the great 
measures and political struggles that separated parties, he never neg- 
lected what was due to his own immediate constituency. He likewise 
did much to open up and protect the trade with New Mexico ; to en- 
courage the establishment of military stations on the Missouri and 
throuirhout the interior ; to cultivate amicable relations with Indian 
tribes, and to favor the commerce of our inland seas that now bear 
such a wealth of freights. The marking out of post roads, and securing, 
appropriations for their maintenance, was especially a work of his own 
undertaking, and its benefit has been deeply felt in every branch of 
western trade. But upon the wider field of national politics, the career 
of Colonel Benton was perhaps most remarkable. In the currency dis- 
putes which attended the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the 
United States, the re-charter afterward, and the final veto message of 
Jackson, he addressed himself to a consideration of the whole question 
of finance, circulating medium and exchange, and brought forward his 
propositions for a gold and silver currency as the true remedy for exist- 
ing embarrassments, and the only rightful medium for Government dis- 
bursements and receipts. Upon this subject he made many of the most 
elaborate speeches of his life. His expositions attracted great attention 
in Europe as well as in America, and extended widely his reputation as 
a debater, a thinker, and a pracdcal statesman. His manner of oratory 
as this time is described as " deliberate and unimpassioned ; his matter 
full to overflowing with facts, figures, logical deduction and historical 
illustration ; but almost wholly devoid of that exuberance of wit and 
raciness of humor which characterize his later discourses." It was from 
the financial policy which he thus enunciated that he derived the 
sobriquet of "Old Bullion,'' which never forsook him and which he 
never forsook. 

As the mover of the "expunging resolutions," Colonel Benton made 
himself especially obnoxious to his political opponents, but finally 
achieved success and gained a great personal triumph. The motion 
was, to strike from the journals of the Senate a resolution of censure 
upon General Jackson, and the subject was then deemed one of great 
importance. No act in Benton's life was more striking than the 
courage, persistency and devotion to his party which he displayed on 
this occasion. In all the great questions that arose during the Van 
Buren, Tyler, Taylor and Polk administrations he bore a leading part. 
His speeches were remarkable for boldness, logic, and incontrovertible 
facts. 



390 



B I O G R A P H I C A I. SKETCHES 



During the Mexican war, his services and intimate acquaintance with 
the Spanish provinces of the South, to whose history he had devoted 
much attention, proved most useful to the Government. The acquisi- 
tion of Mexican territory brought on disputes in Congress touching the 
question of slavery, which, after threatening the peace of the country, 
were adjusted by the compromise acts of 1850. Colonel Benton 
opposed this compromise, ottered by Mr. Clay, as being a vicious 
system of legislation ; as fraudulent in regard to the Texas donation, and 
as defective and ill-judged in its clause in regard to the fugitive slave 
law. In the violent rupture which took place between General Jackson 
and Mr. Calhoun, Colonel Benton at the ver}- outset espoused the cause 
of the former. He became the leading Democratic opponent of Mr. 
Calhoun upon this question in the Senate, and the difference thus 
commenced widened, and the feelings engendered grew more hostile 
between them. The question itself was compromised for a time, but 
broke out afresh in the shape of the slavery agitation some years later. 
Although representing a slave State, Colonel Benton did not deviate 
from the positions he had maintained on former occasions. It was the 
beginning of a warfare which, one of his friends said, "was eventually 
to prostrate himself at home and drive him from the seat he had so long- 
tilled in the Senate." 

Mr. Calhoun, as is well known, on February 19, 1847, introduced a 
set of resolutions in the Senate, declaring the doctrines he wished to 
insist upon in regard to the territorial powers of Congress, the admis- 
sion of States, and the use of common property — all bearing directly 
upon the slavery question, and the exciting issues that had been evoked 
bv the proposed restriction known as the "Wilmot Proviso," which 
required the exclusion of slavery from all the new territory to be 
acquired by the United States. Colonel Benton immediately denounced 
them as "firebrand resolutions.'' Mr. Calhoun expressed his surprise, 
stating he had expected the support of Colonel Benton, as he was from 
a slave State. The latter replied that he had no right to expect such a 
thing. "Then," said Mr. Calhoun, "I shall know where to find the 
gentleman." To which Colonel Benton responded, 'T shall be found 
in the right place — on the side of my country and the Union." Although 
the resolutions never came to a vote in the Senate, they were sent to 
the Legislature of every slave State, were adopted by some of them, 
and became the source of much conflict and the basis of party re-organ- 
ization. They were sent, of course, to Missouri, and confided to hands 
unfriendly to Colonel Benton's re-election. By shrewd management, 
and without exciting suspicion, they were passed in both branches of 



THOMAS II. BENTON. 391 

the Assembly, and sent to Washington. As soon as Colonel Benton 
received the instructions, he denounced them as not being expressive 
of the sense of the people ; as containing disunion doctrines, and as 
designed to produce an • eventual separation of the States. He 
announced that he would appeal from the Legislature to the people, 
and on the adjournment of Congress returned home for that purpose. 
His canvass of the State is well known. In every county where 
meetings were held, he made speeches which, it is said, "for bitterness 
of denunciation, strength of exposition and caustic wit, have scarcely 
their equal in the English language." At hrst, he was supported in his 
position by the Whigs, but finding a prospect of reaping a triumph of 
their own from the divisions of the Democracy, they changed front and 
affihated with the "Anties," as the Democratic opponents of Colonel 
Benton were called. The result was the return of a Legislature, in 
i849-'50, largely Democratic, but composed of opposite wings — the 
Benton men being the plurality. A contest for the senatorship then 
commenced, and many ballotings were had without compromise. But 
a bargain was at length made between Whigs and "Anties," and sixteen 
of those chosen by the people as Democrats, but unfriendly to Colonel 
Benton, voted for Henry S. Geyer, who was elected. Although Mr. 
Geyer was a Whig he had committed himself to the Anti-Benton party 
in a letter prior to his election. To vindicate his position, and to break 
up the ascendency which the so-called nullification party was thus 
acquiring, Colonel Benton, in 1852, made a more direct appeal to the 
people in the first Congressional district, where he resided, announced 
himself a candidate for Congress, and was elected over all opposition. 
In the session following he at first gave a support to President Pierce, 
but regarding the administration as under the Calhoun influence, he 
withdrew it. The administration in turn withdrew its patronage from 
him, displacing from office all his political friends in Missouri. The 
agitation of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise soon followed, and 
became a party measure in the shape of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 
Colonel Benton exerted himself against this with all his strength, 
delivering a memorable speech in the House that did much to arouse the 
people of the countr}- against the act, but failed to defeat its passage. 

Colonel Benton, at the next election, in 1854, was defeated in his 
district by Luther M. Kennett, through a combination of his old oppo- 
nents with the new American party that had just arisen. He resolved 
to devote his attention thenceforth to literary pursuits, but in 1856 was 
prevailed upon by his friends to allow the use of his name for Governor. 
He put on the armor once more and rushed into the conflict. Immense 



392 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



crowds of people gathered to hear him speak in all parts of the State, 
and the utmost enthusiasm prevailed ; but a third list of candidates was 
in the field, representing the iVmerican party, and Colonel Benton's 
vote was divided. Trusten Polk was elected by a small plurality vote. 

In the presidential election of November 1856, Colonel Benton sup- 
ported Mr. Buchanan in opposition to his own son-in-law, Colonel 
Fremont, assigning as a reason that Mr. Buchanan, if elected, would 
restore the principles of the Jackson administration, and the success of 
Fremont might engender sectional parties fatal to the permanence of the 
Union. He saw not long afterward good reason for changing his views. 

From 1856 to the close of his life, Colonel Benton devoted himself 
almost exclusively to literary pursuits. His "Thirty Years' View,'" 
begun some years previous, was continued and finished. Then he 
undertook the laborious work of condensing, revising and abridging 
the debates of Congress from the foundation of the Government to the 
latest date. At the age of seventy-six he performed almost incredible 
labors, and no doubt injured his health. He also wrote a review of the 
Dred Scott decision, which attracted much attention. 

The death of this distinguished man occurred in Washington on the 
loth of April 1858, of cancer in the stomach. He continued his literary 
labors even up to the time of his last sickness, and, it is related, "upon 
his very death-bed he dictated and revised the final portions of his 'De- 
bates' in whispers, after he had lost the ability to speak aloud." 

Colonel Benton was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel James 
McDowell, of Rockbridge count}', Virginia, by whom he had four 
daughters : Mrs. William Carey Jones, Mrs. Jessie Fremont, Mrs. 
Sarah Benton Jacob, and Madame Susan Benton Boileau. 

Mrs. Benton was an invalid for many years, and went but little into 
society. Her husband exhibited toward her a marked degree of tender- 
ness and affection, and denied himself many of the pleasures of society 
on her account. 

During the latter years of his residence in St. Louis, Colonel Benton 
lived in the family of Colonel Brant, a brother-in-law, whose elegant 
mansion was then in the centre of a plot of ground between Third and 
Fourth streets and between Green street and Washington avenue. 

The great Senator was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery, in a famil}^ 
lot beside the remains of his wife, who died in 1854. ^ monument tO' 
his memory, in the shape of a colossal statue, by Harriet Hosmer, may- 
be seen at Lafayette Park. 



HON. ALBERT TODD. 



C\)lBERT TODD was born near Cooperstown, Otsego county, New 
'iITjl. York, March 4, 1813. He is of Scotch and English descent. 
His Scotch descent is through his father, Ira Todd, a direct 
descendant from Christopher Todd, one of the original colonists of 
New Haven, Connecticut. His Enghsh descent is through his mother, 
Sally Hinman. 

His father was of the old school of "work for a living," and was of 
ver}^ active and enterprising habits. He died in his eighty-sixth year. 
His occupations and enterprises were various. They embraced, at dif- 
ferent times, farming, and manufacturing of paper and woolen goods, 
of lumber, flour and mill materials. Some of these various enterprises 
he carried on at diflerent dmes in New York, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New Jersey, Michigan, Ilhnois, and, lastly, in St. Louis, Missouri. 
Into the first four named States he took his famil}-. He w^as the 
father of eleven children — nine sons and two daughters. Of these, 
eight sons and one daughter are now living. His sons were trained to 
work as well and as fast as they were able to do an3-thing useful in his 
various occupations. Hence, each of them has a practical knowledge 
in some one of the vocations of his father. Each of them also had the 
benefits of the education of the public common schools, at the rate ot^ 
three to four months in the year, from the age of six to fifteen years, on 
the average, by which they learned reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic 
and geography. 

Albert Todd, the subject of this sketch, was the fourth born of the 
eleven. In his early days he was strongly inclined to a "life on the 
ocean wave," an inheritance from his mother's side, as the annals of the 
British navv would indicate. His father allowed him a coasting expe- 
rience, with the hope that it would generate a dislike : but as it only 
increased his desire, he was permitted to choose his vocation in case he 
would give up the sea. This was, of course, the mother's remedy. 
He accepted the ofler, and selected a professional life, with the privilege 
of a collegiate education. Which profession his should be, whether 
that of law, medicine or divinity, was left, according to the "good old 
habit of the olden times," to the "guidance of Providence,"' 



394 



BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES 



In his eighteenth vear he accordingly began his preparatory studies in 
Amherst, Massachusetts. He matriculated at Amherst College in 1832. 

In 1833 he left Amherst, and became a member of the sophomore 
class of Yale College. Here he graduated in 1836, with the appoint- 
ment for an oration. He was absent from college during most of the 
time of his senior vear, teaching in a high school, in which occupation 
he continued until the fall of 1836. By this service he earned the 
money with which he paid the expenses of his senior 3'ear. From this 
time forward, his father, on account of reverses in business, became 
unable to render him pecuniary aid, and he has had to depend on his 
own exertions. He then, chose the profession of law, and began his 
studies in Little Falls, Herkimer county. New York, in the office of 
Judge Arphaxed Loomis, who w^as a member of the first commission for 
codifying the laws of New York. Intending to practice his profession 
in New York, he studied under its then regulations. These required a 
seven 3'ears' course of study before application could be made for license 
to practice in the inferior Courts of Record ; and three years additional 
study, with the previous admission to practice as an attorney, before an 
examination was allowed for a license to practice as counselor and 
solicitor in Chancery. With these licenses one could practice in all the 
courts, and not before. But of the first seven years a student was allowed 
a credit of four years, if he was a graduate of a college. 

In 1839, Mr. Todd was duly licensed to practice law. He had been 
a diligent, pains-taking and persevering student, and had thoroughl}- 
mastered all that he had read. He then concluded to "go West," and 
selected the city of St. Louis as the place where he would first put up 
his " shingle " and practice his profession. The city at that time bore 
no comparison in size to what it is at the present time, for then Seventh 
street was its western boundarj^ He arrived in St. Louis on the 9th of 
November in that year, and was licensed to practice in the courts of 
Missouri by Judge Thompkins, in March 1840. Since then, he has 
practiced his profession in this city without interruption or change, 
except as caused from time to time by ill-health. 

He always took a livel}^ interest in politics, and was firm in the opin- 
ion that no man should seek political honors, or become a candidate for 
office, until he had acquired an estate sufficient to support him without 
the aid of the emoluments of the station to which he aspired. In this 
way only could an independent and conscientious discharge of the 
duties and obligations of office be secured. Actuated by this convic- 
tion, he invariablv declined office until 1854, when he was elected to 



HON. A L B E RT T O D D . 395 

the lower house of the Missouri Legislature. It was understood that 
the laws of the State were 'to be revised by the Legislature then elected, 
and, in consequence of such understanding, the members were of more 
than average intelligence, ability and worth. Some of them were 
already possessed of enviable reputations, and there were others who 
afterward became famous. 

Mr. Todd took an active part in the debates, and his judgment was 
often consulted by able men in the profession on questions of law. 
Since then he has been a member of several political conventions, and 
has been especially prominent in canvassing for the party of which he 
is a member. 

He was a Whig in politics until the dissolution of that party. He 
was a candidate for Congress in i860 on the Bell and Everett ticket. 
After the election of Lincoln, and during the whole period of the war, 
as well as since, he has acted with the Democratic party. He has been 
twice married. His first wife, to whom he was married in 1842, was 
the daughter of Mr. Gould Wilson, of Little Falls, New York. She 
died in 1848. In 1854 he married his present wife, who is a daughter 
of the late Hon. Benjamin Johnson, of Bond county, Illinois. 

Mr. Todd is a professor in the law school of Washington University, 
to which his distinguished attainments in the law peculiarly adapt him, 
and to this department in the University his services are given gratui- 
tously. He is also one of the directors in Washington University. He 
is a member, and one of the original founders, of the University Club ; 
a member of, and one of the early subscribers to, the Art Society, in 
which he has always taken a great interest. He is one of the original 
founders of the Pubhc School Library, also of the Mercantile Library 
Association, and of the Academy of Sciences. He w^as among the first 
members of the St. Louis Bar Association, which has included in its 
membership many men of briUiant attainments, and which is destined 
soon to stand second to none in the country : and he is now president of 
the Law Library Association. 

His latest public service was in the State Convention recently held 
for revising and amending the Constitution of the State. In its deli- 
berations, debates and labors, he took an earnest and laborious part. 
Since he felt warranted to engage in public service, he has been will- 
ing to do his duty therein as nearly as he could and had opportunity 
therefor. 



GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON 



/ I \ HIS work would be incomplete without a short sketch of the life 
i of a man who appeared so prominently amid the stirring events 
which agitated the State of Missouri during the earl}' part of the 
civil war, as did General Nathaniel Lyon. Not that we can claim 
the dead hero for St. Louis, but because of the effect his leadership 
of the Union part}' in that city in the year 1861, and the manner in 
which he directed its movements, had upon the subsequent history of 
the great metropolis. As a soldier, a statesman and a patriot, his name 
is worth v of a place in any work. 

Nathaniel Lyon was born in Ashford, Windham County, Connecti- 
cut, July 14, 1819. He was the son of Amasa Lyon, a gentleman well 
and favorably known in the county and State, who had been, on several 
occasions, honored by his fellow-citizens in being elected to various 
positions of trust and responsibihty in the county. On his mother's side 
Tie was descended from the Knowlton family, and his ancestors on both 
sides were celebrated, in the earl}' days of the Republic, for their 
fidelity to freedom, and for valuable services, both in field and council, 
to the cause of liberty. 

His youth, up to his eighteenth year, was passed at his home in Ash- 
ford, at which period he entered the Military Academy at West Point. 
This was in the year 1837. He was, according to General Sherman's 
statement, who was a student companion of his, a fair-haired, blue-eyed 
bo}-, looking but little like the bold, courageous leader he afterward 
turned out to be. He graduated, eleventh in his class, in 1841, and 
was appointed a Lieutenant in the Second United States Infantry, 
which was ordered to Florida to take part in the closing scenes of the 
Seminole war. At the close of the war in Florida, where, fighting amid 
the everglades, he did not fail to distinguish himself, he was ordered to 
Oregon, where he spent a short season. Some time after the com- 
mencement of the Mexican war, he reported to General Taylor, but 
•was soon transferred to the column commanded by General Scott. 
Here his gallant bearing and undoubted bravery soon won for him the 



398 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

esteem and approbation of his commander-in-chief. His gallant con- 
duct along the line of Scott's approach to the City of Mexico, and in 
the very streets of the city itself, gained for him the unanimous 
applause of his comrades-in-arms, and from the Government, which 
was not insensible to his true merits, the increased rank of Captain 
by brevet. It is unnecessar}-, in this brief sketch of a man whose life 
would make a volume, to enter into the many characteristics of bravery- 
exhibited upon the iield, which led to his promotion. The}' are all 
recorded in the different histories of the Mexican war which are now 
extant, and in each of which the valuable services of 3oung Lyon are 
duly recorded and acknowledged. In 185 1 the brevet title gave way 
to a full commission, and Captain Lyon was ordered to California, 
where was committed to him the charge of protecting an exposed 
frontier against marauding bands of Indians. To do this he had but 
two small companies ; but, notwithstanding the small number of men 
placed at his disposal, he found himself equal to the occasion. Many 
old Californians who still live remember how he toiled over the moun- 
tains, carrying boats on wagons where boats had never been seen, to 
reach the Indian hiding-places amid the lakes of the Clear Lake Valle}'. 
Nor did he tarrv there, but on through the mountain passed to the old 
Red River countrv. It is a well-known and acknowledged fact that he 
struck a blow to those Indians that they remember to the present day. 
Nor did he stop here, but, with that characteristic energy which marked 
his entire career, moved on to Sacramento, and sorely revenged the 
massacre of Captain Warner, who had been killed b}^ these Indians. 

In the fall of i860, we tind General Lyon in Western Kansas and 
Nebraska, wielding the pen in defense of his party, the Republican, 
with as much force and ability as he did the sword in fighting the battles 
of his countr}^. 

His writings, or, more proper^ speaking, his few contributions to the 
press, do not in any measure display his mental possibilities; still, few 
as they are, they are sufficient to show of what the man was capable in 
the event of his having given his mind to such labor ; they betray the 
characteristics of considerable genius. In his literar}' endeavors, he 
labored to secure the understanding by forcible and direct appeals to 
reason, and while he was satisfied in accomplishing that, he left to 
others the task of exciting the emotional nature by reaches into the 
realms of poetry and romance. 

When Lyon received the order to proceed to the St. Louis Arsenal 
with all possible dispatch, he was at Fort Riley with his company. He 



GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. 39^ 

immediately obeyed orders, and upon his arrival in St. Louis, learned 
from Mr. Blair the exact situation of affairs in the city and throughout 
the State. Between these two men an intimac}- soon sprung up, which 
was not long in ripening into a warm friendship of mutual respect and 
confidence. 

The Camp Jackson affair, blood}- and fataJ as it w^as to many innocent 
men and women, is of too recent date, and is too well known and 
remembered, to need recapitulation here. The action of General Lyon 
in saving the State to the Union, has been put down as one of the most 
memorable events of his life. • 

Passing over the many details of his career in St. Louis, we come to 
the last drama in his life — the battle of Wilson's Creek. At the opening 
of the battle. General Lyon superintended personally the placing of the 
batteries in position, and arranged the construction of his line of battle. 
He devoted himself entirely to the management of the contest. He 
was everywhere, supporting his men by brave words, cheerihg them bv 
his presence, and, where support was needed, sending in his reserves. 
The battle had been raging for some time, and so near was Lyon to the 
lines of the enemv, that he had dismounted in order to avoid falling a 
victim to the accurate aim of the Confederate sharpshooters. The 
effect of the Confederate fire upon the Union lines was terrific ; it poured 
death and dismay into the ranks. Desertions from the ranks by men 
who had fought bravely up to this time, made a panic imminent. Gen- 
eral Lyon was to be seen in the front ranks, rallying, exhorting and 
encouraging' his men. While thus engaged his horse was shot under 
him, and he himself wounded in the leg and head. Stunned for a few 
moments, he soon recovered, and mounting another horse he again 
began to rally and exhort his bleeding forces. Sweeney said, "General, 
you are hurt, and ought to be attended to." To which the brave man 
replied, "Oh, it is nothing." To Schofield, who remonstrated with 
him upon exposing himself so much, he rephed, "I am but doing my 
duty." 

Turning in his saddle, he perceived a body of infantr}' approaching 
at right angles to his left. This body he mistook for Sigel's column, 
and he rode forward to meet it- Discovering his mistake, however, he 
hastened to bring forward the First Iowa to resist the threatened attack. 
"Who will lead us?" cried several of the regiment, whose Colonel was 
absent at the time. "I will lead you ! Onward, brave boys of Iowa ! " 
cried Lyon, riding forward and waving his hat in encouragement. Just 
then a bullet nierced his heart, and he fell to the ground insensible. 



v^OO "BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

His eyes closed, and Lyon died in victoiy. The last sight that greeted 
his fast-fading vision was the dispersing and retreating columns of the 
Confederates. 

The conspicuous part played by General Lyon in the capture of Camp 
Jackson and the battle of Wilson's Creek, will not permit his name and 
his deeds to earl}' fade from the memor}- of our people ; and a noble 
shaft of Missouri granite, erected b}' the voluntar^^ contributions of his 
admirers, will remind future generations of his deeds of valor. 



LEVI LOUIS ASHBROOK. 



T" EVI LOUIS ASHBROOK, the founder, senior and business head 
-L/ of the flourishing house of Levi Ashbrook & Co., was born in 
Clark county, Kentucky, July 26, 1830. His father, who was a farmer 
and stock trader in the famous blue grass region, was of Anglo-Celtic 
descent, and during his residence in Kentucky attended to the outside 
operations while his sons managed affairs on the farm. In the year 
1840 he removed to Covington and engaged extensively in the pork- 
packing business. The subject of this sketch received his education at 
the private schools of Cincinnati, and completed his studies at Bartlett's 
Commercial College in that city, where he graduated. 

Being ambitious to begin mercantile life, he entered the establishment 
of his father in Covington as general superintendent of his business, 
where he remained until 1847. During that year, in connection with 
his father and brothers, Henry and J. E. Ashbrook, he came to St. 
Louis and established the present house of Levi Ashbrook & Co. 
Under this title it has remained until the present day, and, judging 
from the energy of the present management, it is likely to continue 
so. The father and sons arrived in St. Louis just about the time the 
city was tilled with gloom and discouragement from the great fire, 
which had just destroyed the greater portion of it, and the scourge of 
cholera, which had decimated its population. 

The business was commenced in the southern portion of the city, in 
buildings rented from Wm. Risley, one of the old settlers in St. Louis. 
In 185 1, the firm moved to the northern portion of the city, where the^" 
had erected a building more suitable to their largel}- increasing business. 
This was destroyed by fire in 1854, ^^^ '^ more magnificent one immedi- 
ately took its place, and the mercantile afiairs of the house continued 
without interruption. Since the organization of the firm, no season has 
been lost, they having packed each year. As an instance of the growth 
of this branch of industry in St. Louis, a comparison of the former and 
present packing business of Levi Ashbrook & Co. may be made. Dur- 
ing the first years of the existence of this house, it was regarded as a 



402 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



fair business to pack 10,000 hogs in a season ; now, it takes 75,000 to 
claim the same relative respectability. The father died in 1868, leaving 
the entire business to his sons. 

In addition to his regular business, Mr. Ashbrook has been a large 
dealer in stock, and feeds thousands of cattle every winter. He and his 
brother have large farms in the country, on which they are continually 
feeding and fattening cattle for the market. At one time they had 
16,000 head of cattle on hand, which they had driven from Texas, the 
larger portion of which they carried through the winter. 

Mr. Ashbrook was twice married ; first, in June 1856, to Miss Kate 
A. Rule of St. Louis, who survived her marriage about one year. His 
second marriage took place in 1864, when he led to the altar Miss Julia 
A. Letcher, also of St. Louis. His family consists of seven children. 

Notwithstanding the urgent demands of his regular business upon his 
time, Mr. Ashbrook has been connected with some of the most import- 
ant enterprises of the day. For a long time he has been a director in 
the Pacific Insurance Company, and is now a director in the Bremen 
Savings Bank, the Exchange Bank, and the National Stock Yard Com- 
pany of East St. Louis. He was also vice-president of the Merchants' 
Union Exchange in 1874, ^"^^ ^'^^ ^^e choice of a large number of his 
brother merchants for president of the same honorable body in 1S75. 

Quiet and unassuming, but of a wonderfully active and vigorous 
organization, Mr. Ashbrook is justly considered one of the leading 
spirits of the mercantile world of St. Louis. In all his business under- 
takings he stands high for unswerving integrity and honesty of purpose. 
Every deserving public enterprise meets with his approbation and 
assistance. He is still in the prime of manhood, full of mental and 
physical vigor, and his well-known fidelity to the public interests will 
doubtless lead our citizens to make further and greater demands upon 
his efforts, and cause them to accord him the fuller recognition which 
his services deserve. 



WILLIAM D. GRISWOLD. 



WILLIAM D. GRISWOLD is known to the people of St. Louis 
as a prominent railroad man of the West, and principally through 
his connection with the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, as its able and 
efficient chief officer. When he made his home in St. Louis, the great 
improvements with which he had been identified, and which had been 
so largely benefited by his executive ability, were already accomplished 
facts. He had been a pioneer, yet he came here as a representative of 
results, the honor of which has been, in a measure, appropriated by 
other men. This was, indeed, a matter of indifterence to him, as he 
had built no monuments of self -laudation along the pathway of his life. 
It is for others to drag truth from the bottom of her metaphorical well, 
and, when found, to make no secret of the discovery ; but when we 
come to analyze the events in which he bore a leading part, we are 
driven to the conclusion that he furnished the genius for organization 
and the executive force and discernment which first made possible, and 
then profitable, some of the now established highways of western traffic 
and travel. 

He was born in the State of Vermont, November 6, 1815, and was 
educated at Millbury College, at which institution of learning he gradu- 
ated. This old institution can boast of being the Alma Mater of many 
other prominent men of St. Louis, of whom are General John B. Gray, 
Dr. T. M. Post, and the late R. E. Field, some of whom were class- 
mates of his. The law was his chosen avocation, and to fit himself for 
the practice of that profession was the serious business of his youth. 
To this end he taught school, and read law in such intervals of time as 
he could command. He thus qualified for his profession without ever 
regularly placing himself in a lawyer's office. In furtherance of his 
plan of life, he made his advent into Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1838. 
Here it was that he was admitted to the bar, and afterward became, in 
a practice extending over a period of fifteen years, a lawyer of con- 
fessedly strong abilities. The frequent recurrence of his name in the 
law Reports of that State bears witness of the amount of work he 



404 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



performed, and the same record gives some indication of its quality. 
He was nominated for Judge of the Supreme Court of the State in 1858, 
without any soHcitation or desire on his part to make the race. He ran 
ahead of his ticket, but was defeated by the Democratic majority. 

In the course of a prosperous professional career, he had gradually 
made investments in railroad property until, by degrees, they repre- 
sented his chief interest. By these investments, Mr. Griswold became 
a prominent railroad man. The carrying trade is the great trade of the 
world — it is the basis of all commerce. The West was dwarfed into 
insignificance by the lack of transportation facilities, when an era came 
that built railroads and laid the foundation of prosperity and power. 
The men who gave to commerce the facilities we now possess, and who 
perfected them in their operation, are entitled to all honor. He was 
first president of the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad, in the 
construction, and afterward in the operation of the same, and then in 
1859, took charge of the Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad. 
When he came to its management it was a financial and material wreck, 
but four years of assiduous labor on his part, brought it to a position of 
efficiency, usefulness and value. From the Terre Haute, Alton and St. 
Louis, he was called to the presidency of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Railway, which, for seven years, received the benefit of his untiring 
and devoted efforts . The work which he did there knew no inter- 
mission, by night or day, or Sunday, until it resulted in giving that great 
artery of commerce the prominence its location merited. The seven 
3'ears during which he was president of this road, mark a period of 
distinguished success. The last important act of his administration was 
the change of guage of the road, the execution of which was immedi- 
ately in charge of his son, then the general superintendent of that road, 
now one of the proprietors of the Lindell Hotel of this cit}'. This 
change, after all arrangements were made, was at last accomplished in 
a single day, and a line of railroad three hundred and forty miles in 
length, was converted into a track uniform with Eastern narrow guage 
connections, over the whole of which the cars of both the broad and 
narrow guage passed on the same day and on the same road-bed. 

Mr. Griswold was always a conservative element in that pushing- 
pioneer spirit that entered upon great public improvements. While 
inferior to none of his contemporaries in enterprise, he yet possesses 
the discrimination that has guarded himself and his associates against 
vain and illusory projects. 




\\V-aieniKiigivfv-ui^ Coinpoinof Si Jxtin 



r 



//^/.w// ^__J. , 






HUDSON E. BRIDGE. 



iTjvOREMOST among the names of representative men of St. Louis, 
X who, for a period of nearly forty years, held a strong position in 
the public regard and estimation, stands the name placed at the 
head of this sketch. 

Hudson E. Bridge was born at Walpole, New Hampshire (whither 
his parents had removed a short dme before from Worcester, Massa- 
chusetts,) on the 17th day of May, 1810. He was descended from that 
old Puritan stock which found its way from the shores of the Old World 
and setded in the vicinity of Boston, about the middle of the seven- 
teenth centur}-. In his early childhood his parents removed to Benning- 
ton, Vermont, where, under the shadows of the Green Mountains, he 
grew up in the life of the ordinary New England boy, spending the 
greater part of the year in the labors of the farm, and eagerly avaihng 
himself of the limited facilities for education which were provided dur- 
ing the winter months. In the very month in which he was twenty-one, 
against the protest of his friends, he turned his face toward the West, 
full of confidence that, in its boundless resources, there was a wider 
field for what he considered his own capacity for business success. 

Mr. Bridge left the parental roof with only six dollars in his pocket, 
to save which, he walked to Troy, New York, and there entered a store, 
where he remained six months, accumuladng sufficient means to take 
him to Columbus, Ohio, the place he had originally selected as his des- 
dnation. Arriving at Columbus in the autumn of 1831, his first care 
was to survey the field before him, and, whilst so doing, he opened a 
school for the winter months, in which he was successful, and was urged 
to continue. But teaching was a temporary expedient, not at all con- 
genial to his tastes or inclination, and at the eadiest opportunity he 
entered the employment of a firm there, doing, for the place and period, 
an extensive business. Whilst connected with this house as salesman, 
he made trips, at different times, covering the whole West from Detroit 
to Nashville, and from Columbus to St. Louis. To his knowledge of 
the West and Western people, acquired at this time, Mr. Bridge attrib- 
uted much of his later success. He was a man of great enterprise. 



^o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

always adventurous ; and to do something which had not been done be- 
fore ; to extend the facihties for business ; to cheapen the cost of man- 
ufacturing ; to make at home something that others thought necessar}^ to 
bring from abroad, was always with him an object to be attained. It 
was with this view that, in 1835, he left Columbus and went to Spring- 
field, Illinois. Mr. Jewett, an active young man, whose acquaintance 
he had formed at Columbus, accompanied him, and under the firm-name 
of Bridge & Jewett they inaugurated the manufacture of plows in that 
city, which, up to that time, had been brought from Cincinnati. At a 
later period the firm was strengthened by taking in two additional part- 
ners — Messrs. Mather and Lamb, both old residents of Springfield. 
The "Jewett Plow," manufactured by the firm, soon became celebrated, 
and the leading plow of the day ; and the business of the firm was one 
of uninterrupted success. 

It was during one of Mr. Bridge's trips to the Cumberland river for 
iron, that he became interested in St. Louis ; and after endeavoring, 
without success, to interest his partners at Springfield in the proposed 
new location, in 1837 he came to St. Louis and, in company with 
Hale and Re3^burn, established the business in this city. Mr. Hale 
dying soon after, the business was continued by Bridge and Reyburn, 
and the department of stoves and hollow-ware was added. At this 
period, all manufactures of this character were brought from the Ohio 
river — principally from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Mr. Beach, how- 
ever, conceived that the cost might be lessened by having the plates 
manufactured on the Tennessee river, and put together in his own 
shop ; this was the first innovation. But this did not satisfy him. With 
only the experience in iron manufacture acquired in Springfield, he 
determined to make the plates in St. Louis, and in 1838 a little foundry 
was established in connection with his store. Old stove dealers warned 
the young man — then only twenty-eight years of age — of his folly in 
endeavoring to compete with the older manufacturers at Cincinnati, and 
of the failure that must inevitably follow. But Mr. Bridge soon found 
that by careful economy, the cost of manufacture was less than the cost 
of bringing them from the East. At this time, he was his own foreman 
and salesman by day, and his book-keeper at night ; and though of 
very humble pretensions in comparison of the establishment of to-day, 
the foundation was thus laid of the Empire Stove Works, which was 
destined to become one of the largest and best known establishments in 
the Mississippi Valle}-. 



HUDSON E. BRIDGE. 407 

Before 1840, he had gathered into his own famil}^ circle his parents 
and brothers, all of whom have passed away under his own roof. 

In the 3'ear 1842, Mr. Bridge associated with him his younger 
brother, Harrison Bridge, and the tirm of Bridge & Brother was estab- 
Hshed. His brother's death, in 1850, left him again alone for several 
3^ears, In 1857, Mr. John H. Beach, who had been for several years 
connected with the house, was admitted as an associate, and the firm 
of Bridge, Beach & Co. has continued to the present time. Mr. 
Bridge's relation as founder of the great manufacturing interest with 
which his name has been so long and honorably associated, is but a 
small portion of his public history ; and while his name is enrolled high 
on the Hst of our merchants and manufacturers, he will stand higher as 
a public-spirited, high-minded and honored citizen. 

It is not stating the case too strongly to say that there are few left 
who command, in an equal degree, not merely the pubhc esteem and 
confidence, but the public affection . Of singular purity and simplicity 
in private life, during thirty-eight years' residence in this city no breath 
was ever heard against his good name. Honorable in all his deahngs, 
rigorously just even against himself, his dehcate sense of public and 
private duty made his name in the community the S3monym of mercan- 
tile rectitude and honor. A successful business career did not separate 
him from his fellow-men : but to all alike — the highest and the lowest — 
he preserved the simplicity of character and frank, cordial manner, 
which those who knew him will long remember. 

For the entire period of his residence in St. Louis he was a part of 
its business life and activity. So far from retiring from business 
pursuits on achieving success, increased wealth only opened new 
avenues for investment in business enterprise. He was a constant and 
generous contributor, and for many years an active worker, in ever}- 
new public work that could conduce to the growth and prosperity of 
the city. He was an original subscriber and worker in the inauguration 
of the Missouri Pacific, the North Missouri, the Iron Mountain and 
Ohio & Mississippi Railroads, the St. Louis and Illinois Bridge Com 
pany, and many kindred works. He was one of the original corporators 
of the Washington University, the Polytechnic Institute and Mary Insti 
tute, in all of which institutions he was a trustee ; and to them all he 
has been a generous donor. Through portions of the period of his 
residence in this cit\' he has been a director of the Boatmen's Savings 
Institution, the Merchants' Bank,- the Pacific Railroad for fifteen years, 
and twice its president ; one of the founders of Bellefontaine Cemetery, 
dedicated upon his fortieth birthday, of which he was the first president. 



408 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

continuing through many years. He was one of the founders and 
managers of the Institution for the Education of the Blind as a private 
institution, before it was conveyed to the State ; a director and twice 
president of the Mercantile Library Association, whose present edifice, 
at the corner of Fifth and Locust streets, was erected during his 
administration, and was due largely to his influence and energy. He 
was a director in the St. Louis and Illinois Bridge Company, the St. 
Charles Bridge company, and numerous other institutions in which his 
connection was less conspicuous. It was one of his business maxims 
that no citizen should allow his name to be used as a director in any 
corporation, or in connection with any public trust, to which he was 
unable or unwilling to devote his personal attention, and on this ground 
he frequently declined the use of his name as a responsible manager, 
even when he was largely interested as a stockholder. 

At the outbreak of the war, Mr. Bridge announced his position 
among the first as one of unqualified devotion to the Union cause, and 
he was elected a member of the Convention of 1861, the prompt action 
of which in establishing a provisional government for the State, secured 
the position of Missouri throughout the war. He was a liberal contrib- 
utor to the fund for the organization of the earlier regiments w^hen 
no assistance could be had from Washington, and he was at all times a 
generous donor to all the sanitary and other associations growing out of 
the war. His membership in the Convention of 1861 was the only 
political trust he ever consented to accept. 

Extensive as were his connections with business interests up to the 
day of his death, he did not allow such connections to rule his life, or 
to absorb all his time. Having passed the years of his boyhood in the 
country, he always retained a strong inclination to rural pursuits. In 
1862 he purchased a considerable estate a few miles west of the city, 
and from that date he devoted much of his time to improving and 
beautifying his grounds, bringing to it the same practiced method and 
personal supervision that characterized all his relations. With rarely an 
exception he returned from the city to his house every day at noon. 
There at Glendale, in the midst of delightful surroundings, and in the 
enjoyment of the society of his children, to whom he was devotedly 
attached, and friends, he passed one-half of each day dispensing a 
hospitality not less warm and generous than it was simple and unosten- 
tatious. 

The first indications of ill-health occurred in the winter of 1873, from 
which he apparently fully recovered, and it was the hope of his family 
that his strong constitution, preserved, as it had been, by an exceed- 



HUDSON E. BRIDGE. 4O9 

ingly simple and temperate life, would conquer. A recurrence, how- 
ever, ensued in a few months, after which time, with intervals of improve- 
ment and relapse, his well-preserved ph3'sical constitution had been 
contending with that inexorable malad}', Bright' s disease. Throughout 
the entire period his cheerfulness never forsook him. Looking death 
calmly in the face, he continually advised about the business and per- 
sonal affairs, giving directions for enlargement and extension in certain 
departments after his death. To a member of his family, but a short 
time before death, he stated that he regarded his life's work as com- 
plete, perhaps, as it would ever be, and though he would have pre- 
ferred to have lived three or four years longer, on account of his 
younger children, he felt perfectly resigned to God's will in the matter, 
thankful for so much as had been given to him. 

Mr. Bridge had been a member of the Church of the Messiah (Uni- 
tarian) since he came to St. Louis. 

In his benefactions during his lifetime, Mr. Bridge was unostentatious, 
and it is difficult to estimate their amount. The}', however, largely 
exceeded a quarter of a million dollars, chiefly to educational institu- 
tions, in which he was greatly interested. 

His gifts to Washington University alone, including its several depart- 
ments, amounted to $175,000, the whole of which, we are informed, 
was bestowed upon it without solicitation, and without conditions an- 
nexed. He gave freely wherever he thought good could be accom- 
plished, but never wished to have his name appear if it could be 
avoided. 

The secret of Mr. Bridge's success may be found in his scrupulous 
performance of every engagement, and in his abhorrence of debt. He 
was ready to excuse almost any fault, except the want of business integ- 
rity, and could not be tempted by the largest hope of profit into trading 
upon borrowed capital. His progress was, therefore, sure and steady; 
and, although at the first slow, it ultimately became rapid, even to the 
accumulation of great wealth. 

Mr. Bridge expired at the residence of his son-in-law in this city, at 
three o'clock, Februar}^ 25, 1875. The funeral took place on Sunday, 
March ist, from the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian). All the seats 
of the church were filled, and the entry and vestibule closeh^ packed 
with people. It would be a long task to name the distinguished men 
who were there. The pupils and teachers of the Asylum for the Blind 
attended in a body ; representatives of scholastic and public institutions ; 
members of the Bar ; prominent merchants — all gathered together to pa}^ 
the last rites of friendship to the honored dead. 



4IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

The altar was beautifully decorated with evergreens and flowers. On 
one side stood a sheaf of ripe grain, emblematic of old age, and on the 
other a Corinthian column of flowers on a platform of lilies ; also, a 
sheaf of grain trimmed with flowers, presented by the Mar}- Institute. 
An anchor, cross and crown were upon the altar, made of lilies and 
roses. His long-tried friend and pastor. Rev. W. G. Elliot, Chan- 
cellor of Washington University, conducted the exercises and preached 
the farewell discourse, which was an eloquent tribute to the many 
exalted virtues of the deceased. In the course of it, he said : 

Our dear friend, whose death we now lament, was one whose life was very prosper- 
ous ; for many years past almost exceptionally exempt from the ills of fortune, and 
signally favored, as he often said, by all the blessings of a kind Providence. But I 
remember the days when it was not so — when he was struggling up the hill under many 
discouragements — with few to help him and many whom he was bound to help — while 
one bereavement after another came upon him in rapid succession, until it seemed that he 
would be utterly overwhelmed. Every year brought death into his household, every 
year brought fear of new bereavement. We were both of us young then, and naturally 
full of hope, but he once said that it seemed to him that trouble was on every side. The 
clouds cast so dark a shadow on his path that he needed to look upward to see the light. 
But I never heard him utter a word of complaint, or speak as if things were going wrong 
with him. The presence of death brought sadness, not gloom. The goodness of God 
was never obscured to his sight, and he felt that separations were only for a time. He 
seldom spoke of his griefs, and never obtruded them upon the notice of others; for they 
who feel most deeply are generally silent. But there were many years when the duties 
of life were more prominent than its enjoyments. He saw in those who died the triumph 
of Christian faith ; he was enabled to thank God for the continually renewed hope of 
immortality. Men saw him going forward in his daily routine of duty, but did not know 
the weight that rested upon his heart, nor the sacred sense of duty by which continued 
work was made possible. 

The remains were incased in a metallic casket, ornamented with silver 
trimmings, and festooned with flowers and vines. The bier was borne 
by eight workmen from the Empire Stove Works. 

General Sherman, Wayman Crow, L. Levering, James E. Yeatman, 
Charles Parsons, James Smith, Gerard B. AUen, Oliver D. Filley, 
Robert Campbefl, J. A. Allen, J. P. Helfenstein, G. R. Taylor, Giles 
F. Filley, Nathan Cole, and General Edwards, acted as pall-bearears. 
His remains rest in the family lot at Belief ontaine. 

When Hudson E. Bridge died, there was no department of business 
life in St. Louis that did not feel his loss. He has left the enviable 
record of a "good citizen," a practical philanthropist, and a faithful 
Christian. Of him it may be well said that — 

•' He was sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, and approached his grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 



BARTON ABLE. 



JjVOR a long period the name of Able has been honorabl}- and con- 
Jl. spicuously connected with the commercial interests and history of 
St. Louis. For a quarter of a century the name of Captain 
Barton Able has been so intimately interwoven with every commer- 
cial or political enterprise of this great city, that it would trouble the 
faithful biographer to mention any undertaking to promote the weal of 
St. Louis in which his name would fail to appear prominently as one of 
the most energetic workers and principal movers. 

Barton Able was born in Trinity, Alexander County, Illinois, about 
six miles above Cairo, on the Ohio River, July 31, 1823. His father 
was a farmer, and of Irish descent. His mother was of Scotch parent- 
age, and was named Cameron. About the year 18 10, his father settled 
in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and in 1820 moved to Illinois, and took 
up the homestead upon which Barton was born. He was a man of fine 
character: was a soldier in the war of 181 2 : was a member of the 
Illinois Legislature from 1832 to 1840, where he served his State with 
such men as Baker, Lincoln, Hogan, Douglas, Jessee K. Dubois and 
John T. Hardin. He kept a wood-yard and countr}^ store, as well as 
his farm above Cairo on the Mississippi River, and was, in man}' ways, 
a representative man of his section of the State. 

Both parents died in 1840, leaving three children, Captains Barton 
and Daniel Able, and a sister, now the wife of Captain Nat. S. Green, 
of Memphis. Young Barton's early education was very limited, and 
was confined to about three months attendance at a country school. He 
worked on the farm, and attended to his father's business at the wood- 
yard and store. Upon the death of his father, young Barton, with a 
view of seeking more favorable opportunities for his future labors, left 
the homestead in Illinois and came to St. Louis, where he airived with 
$100 in money in his possession. He was then in his twenty-second 
year, and full of hope and expectation. He saw his last dollar go for 
board before he obtained emplo3^ment. He at last shipped as mud, or 
receiving clerk on the Keokuk packet "Ocean Wave," at the nominal 



412 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

salary of .$30 per month — a sum that would make some of the young 
men of to-day, starting out in life, wonder where they were going to get 
cigar money — yet he shipped, and held the position for two years, until 
1847, when Captain Whitney, who commanded the boat, retired, and 
he was immediately chosen by the owners as Captain, at a salar}- of 
$100 per month. For this sudden change in his affairs. Captain Able 
had none to thank but himself. His strict attention to business, his 
uniform, courteous and gentlemanly course in transacting such matters 
as came within his department, made him a universal favorite, and upon 
the first favorable opportunity, the owners of the boat took occasion to 
show their appreciation of his business qualifications by giving him sole 
command of it. He continued in charge of the ''Ocean Wave" for two 
years, when he was given command of the steamers Time and Tide, and 
Cataract, running these packets in the Illinois River trade until 1854. 
Captain Able was then transferred to the Missouri River trade, in which 
he commanded the steamers Cataract and Edinburg, and remained in it 
till 1858, when he retired from the steamboat business and engaged in 
commercial enterprises. From 1858 until 1864, Captain Able conducted 
a large commission house in St. Louis, on the corner of Pine and 
Commercial streets, meeting with the same reward ashore as on the 
river — success. 

Aside from his regular business, Captain Able has been conspicuous, 
and has taken a very active part, in the politics of the city and State, as 
well as in all matters which partook of a public nature. 

In 1856, he was elected a member of the Missouri Legislature on the 
Free Soil ticket, and served in that body with B. Gratz Brown and other 
men of like prominence. While in the Legislature, Captain Able put 
the late Thos. H. Benton in nomination for the United States Senate, 
and cast the first vote in the Legislature for emancipation ever given in 
the State. 

In early life he was a Democrat, but refused to recognize slavery as an 
institution worthy of perpetuation, and opposed its further maintenance. 

In 1865, he was elected president of the Merchants' Exchange, one 
of the highest honors the merchants of St. Louis can confer upon one 
of their number. It is needless to say that during Captain Abie's 
term of service the responsible duties of this office were administered 
in a manner satisfactory to the mercantile community. 

Upon the breaking out of the civil war. General L3-on, who was in 
command at St. Louis, placed Captain Able in charge of the transport- 
ing department in this city. He had the sole charge of the expedition 



BARTON ABLE. 



413 



that took Lyon and his troops to Boonville ; he also provided transport- 
ation for the troops that went South on the Mississippi, and commanded 
the fleet that took General Fremont and his army to Cairo. He was, 
otherwise, one of the most prominent men in the city in the manage- 
ment of the Union interests, and in co-operating with General Blair in 
all his measures for the support of the Government. He always held 
an influential position among the loyal men in the West, advising and 
superintending the interests of the Union. 

Captain Able was a Benton delegate to the Cincinnati Convention that 
nominated James Buchanan for President ; was also a delegate to the 
Baltimore Convention in 1864, and a member of the Conservative dele- 
gation. He was also chairman of the delegation to the Philadelphia 
Convention in 1866, to consider the state of the country ; and a delegate 
to the Chicago Convention that nominated Lincoln. He has always 
been a great personal friend of x\ndrew Johnson, from whom, unsolic- 
ited on his part, he received the appointment of Collector of Internal 
Revenue for the city of St. Louis. 

Captain Able has also been a member of the National Board of Trade 
for some years, and has been an active, working delegate from St. 
Louis to almost every commercial convention that has met in the Valley 
of the Mississippi to consider the trade and commerce of the West. 
Trusted by his peers, and pronounced by the popular vote of his fel- 
lows a man of superior judgment and capacity, on all questions touch- 
ing the trade and commerce of the West that have arisen within the last 
thirty years, the good sense and sound judgment of Captain Able have 
always been consulted ; and whenever it became necessar}^ for the 
Merchants" Exchange to send a delegate to Washington to represent 
and guard the material interests of Western trade and commerce, as a 
general thing the choice of that organization fell upon him. 

He was married in 1847, at Prairie-du-Rocher, to Miss Mary Ann 
Hailman, daughter of Dr. David Hailman of Kaskaskia, Illinois, niece 
of the late Judge Edmonds of New York. His family consists of his 
wife and one daughter. 

Thus through a long series of years has Captain Able been intimately 
connected with the growth and advancement of St. Louis, alwa^-s one 
of the first to perceive any advantage to be gained by his fellow- 
citizens, and ever a firm advocate of such measures as would be likely 
to prove advantageous to the general public. In his habits he is strongly 
domestic. A kind father and a loving husband, he is the subject of 



.j^A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



almost adoration in the bosom of his own- family. His home is the 
abode of cheerfulness, and beneath his roof his friends are sure to meet 
with a genial hospitality and kindness not to be forgotten. In conclu- 
sion, it may be said that in every walk of life Captain Able is a true 
representative of the upright, christian gentleman. 



HON. EDWARD BATES. 



(a) BOUT the beginning of the nineteenth century, or a Httle later, a 
^Tx few Americans came into existence who grew to be giants in 
intellect, and some of them in physical stature. The places in 
which they were born and the age in which they were developed seemed 
particularly adapted to the growth of men. The public career of 
George Washington had just closed, and his brilliant and spotless 
record was before the public for inspection and example. The deeds 
of the heroes of the Revolution were fresh in the minds of the young, 
and were the chief topics of conversation by the fireside and at school. 
The young Republic had gained some strength, but was still struggling 
for existence among the nations. It was the pride of all Americans ; 
they talked of it by day, and dreamed of it by night. Outside the few 
leading cities the country was new and rough, and the dangers from 
hostile Indians were many. The people suffered privations and endured 
hardships, but they were brave and hopeful ; thankful for what had been 
accomplished, and laying deep plans to accomplish more. To the 
original thirteen States had been added two or three others, but the 
great territor}' west of the Alleghanies was almost an unexplored region. 
The star of empire, however, was taking its way westward. The 
settlement of Kentucky had been formed into a sovereign State, and 
Tennessee was admitted to like privileges shortly after. 

It was this period, as we have stated, that gave birth to a class of 
men who have contributed largely to the success and glory of the 
nation. They were strong in body, vigorous in intellect, sturdy and 
incorruptible in moral character. Among them were Corwin, Wade, 
Seward, Chase, Lincoln and Bates. 

In intellectual endowments Edward Bates was not inferior to anv of 
these contemporaries, and in moral qualities, he was superior to some of 
them. Virginia, the State that has given so many great men to the nation, 
was his birth-place. He was born at Belmont, Goochland County, Vir- 
ginia, September 4, 1793. His ancestors were among the Jamestown 
colony, and probably came to this country from England in 1625. They 



4l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

were Quakers, but when the war of the Revolution commenced, T. F. 
Bates, the father of Edward, enhsted as a soldier, and fought for free- 
dom. For this violation of the rules of the order, he was disavowed 
by his Quaker brethren, and after that the family were not members of 
that denomination. Of a family of twelve children, Edward was the 
seventh son. He was a quick and intelligent lad, and showed a fond- 
ness for study. But where his father lived, books were scarce, and 
schools were almost unknown. A kinsman, Benjamin Bates, who 
lived at Hanover, was a good scholar, and to him was intrusted the 
education of Edward, to some extent. He drilled the boy thoroughly 
in the elementary branches, taught him mathematics, some philosophy, 
and a little historv. An opportunity was atfbrded for him to attend 
Charlotte Hall, an academic institution in Maryland, and he gladl}^ 
accepted the offer. Here he acquired a good knowledge of the classics, 
and the higher branches of English. Through the influence of a friend, 
a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him, but when he found it 
would be against his mother's wishes to enter the naval service, he 
declined it. In 1813, however, we find him serving at Norfolk, in 
the Virginia militia, from February to October. His elder brother, 
Frederick, had been appointed Secretary of the Territory of Missouri, 
and wrote him an encouraging account of things in the new country. 
He resolved to make the West his home, and accordingly started for 
St. Louis in the summer of 18 14. He was then twenty years of age ; 
strong and healthy in mind and body, and ambitious to make a name 
and fortune in the new Territor3\ With these motives to stimulate 
him, 3^oung Bates commenced the study of law with Rufus Easton, 
then an eminent attorney in St. Louis, and afterwards delegate in 
Congress. He must have made good progress in his legal studies, for 
in 1816, two years after his arrival, he was admitted to the bar. The 
•elder lawyers at the St. Louis bar, relate with pride the stories that have 
been handed down (for few now living were at the bar then) of the 
great industry and studiousness of the young lawyer. He was at his 
oflice at the earliest hour in the day, and remained with his books and 
papers until a late hour at night. He was faithful to his clients, and 
conscientious in accepting fees. A bad cause could not secure his 
services, even with the largest fee, but he frequently gave legal advice 
and assistance to the deserving, without hope of reward. 

In 1819 Mr. Bates was appointed Circuit Attorne}^ by the United 
States Government, and held the place one year. The following year 
a convention was called to form a State Government, with a view to 



HON. EDWARD BATES. 417 

admission into the Federal Union. Mr. Bates was elected a member of 
that body and rendered important service in the framing of the organic 
law. When the State was admitted into the Union he was appointed 
Attorney General, and held the office for a year or more. Then he 
went back to the practice of his profession, but frequently was inter- 
rupted by calls upon him to serve in the State Legislature. To these 
demands he yielded more or less for several years, serving in both 
houses. 

He was an active member of the Whig party, and in fact may be 
said to have organized it in Missouri. Mr. Bates, however, was of a 
gentle disposition, and could not enter into politics with the bitter 
partisan feeling which characterized many others. Though firm in his 
political convictions, he was ever courteous to his opponents, and gained 
their respect, even when he lost their votes. 

In 1823, Mr. Bates was married to Miss Julia D. Coulter, a young- 
lady of good family, amiable character and all true womanly qualities. 
His home at this time was in St. Louis, and no man ever had a 
happier one. Honors had been bestowed upon him in profusion, his 
practice was extensive and lucrative, and hosts of friends were ready to 
serve him when occasion required. 

In 1824, President Monroe appointed him United States District 
Attorney for Missouri, not at his own solicitation, but on account of 
his fitness for the place and as a recognition in some measure of the 
political services he had rendered. In 1826, he resigned this position 
and was elected to Congress, where he served with great distinction 
and ability both in committees and on the floor of the House. During 
his term in Congress he became intimate with Henry Clay, and the 
friendship thus established was continued during the life of the great 
commoner. Mr. Bates was a candidate for re-election in the fall of 
1828, but was defeated by Spencer Pettis. The Democratic party, 
under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, had come into power in the 
nation, and its influence was felt in every part of the country. Con- 
gressional districts which had been strongly held by the Whigs, now 
yielded to the popular party, and old leaders like Bates were obliged to 
retire, for a season. His immediate constituents, however, needed him 
for service in the State Senate. In 1834, ^^ was elected to the lower 
house of the Missouri Legislature, where he was a leader in all 
important issues. 

So much had Mr. Bates been in public life, he had neglected his 
private interests, and began also to decline in health. He resolved to 

•27 



4l8 BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES. 

repair both, and, moving his family to the countr}', he divided his time 
between the labors of a farm and the duties of his profession. Everv 
day when the courts were in session, he would ride to town on horse- 
back, and return in the same manner to his home at night. In 1842 he 
resumed his residence in the cit}'. 

Mr. Bates had been so long engaged in the practice of law in St. 
Louis, that he was but little known to the people at large, so that when 
the great Internal Improvement Congress met in the city of Chicago in 
1847, it is no wonder that the proposition to make him president of that 
body, was met by the sneering remark of an Eastern delegate that he 
was only an obscure Western lawyer. "We want a man of national 
reputation to preside over us,"" said the delegate. Nevertheless, Mr. 
Bates was chosen to preside, Western influence being too strong for 
Eastern men to overcome. But the slur at his obscurity came to his 
ears, and he resolved to introduce himself before the Convention was 
over. During all the da3's of Clay, Webster and Jackson, the Calhoun 
doctrine that the constitutional power of Congress to make or contribute 
to internal improvements was limited to the tide-waters of the ocean, 
was the avowed doctrine of the Government of the United States. This 
was one of the most hotly contested policies of the dominant party of 
those days, especially in the great West, to which it was of ^'ital impor- 
tance. He deemed it important, therefore, that this question should be 
plainly yet earnestly set forth to the Convention over which he was 
called to preside. In the debates that took place, no one entirely met 
the requirements of the case, and at the close he asked permission to 
make some remarks. An intimate friend writes: "It is strictly true 
that he rose to address that Convention unknown beyond the borders of 
Missouri, and sat down with an established reputation as a national 
orator and statesman. No single speech ever produced a more benefl- 
cial or lasting effect in this country. The reporters were paralyzed by 
his eloquence and dropped their pens, and the speech was thus, in one 
sense, lost; but the eflect upon the country, and especially the West, 
was electric. The mere fact that such a surprising eflect, by his able 
treatment of this subject, was produced on an assemblage of calculating 
business men like those who composed the Chicago Convention, was 
not onl}' a wonder to all men, but it aroused a deep enthusiasm and 
determination in the Western people that would not be refused their 
just demands. Unity, enthusiasm, organization and strength followed 
at once, and in two years Mr. Calhoun himself yielded, at the Memphis 
Convention, his life-long convictions of constitutional law : and the 



HON. EDWARD BATES 



419 



West was admitted to be entitled to a share of Federal patronage in the 
improvement of its rivers and the building of its railroads." The mem- 
bers of this Convention returned home filled with admiration for Mr. 
Bates' brilliant powers and dignified manners. Efforts were made to 
bring him back to political life, but he refused to be a candidate for 
any political office. 

Upon the accession of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency, in 1850, 
Mr. Bates was, without solicitation, appointed and immediately con- 
firmed by the Senate as Secretary of War. He was then in the moun- 
tains of Virginia, and was not apprised of his appointment for two 
weeks after his confirmation by the Senate. It was the first appoint- 
ment of a Cabinet minister ever made west of the Mississippi. When 
he arrived in Washington, great was the astonishment of the country to 
find that he persistenth' declined the office. Mr. Bates was then 
requested to nominate his successor, and at his suggestion Henry S. 
Geyer was tendered the position of Secretary of the Interior, but he 
also declined. 

In 1853, Mr. Bates was elected Judge of the St. Louis Land Court. 
He gave himself earnestly to the duties of the office, but continued to 
take a deep interest in the welfare of the countr}'. 

In 1854, ^^ ^"^^^ ^" opponent of the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, and co-operated with the Free-Labor or Emancipation party 
in Missouri, not only in advancing their measures of State policy, 
but in hostility to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Con- 
stitution. 

Mr. Bates was much talked of for the Presidency in 1856, but the 
rapid growth of the Republican party left the members of the Whig 
organization but little ground for a successful campaign. Had the}^ 
honestly, two or three years before, united in opposition to the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, and against the encroachments of slavery, 
they could have saved their party. Mr. Bates was wiser than his party. 
Although he presided over the Whig Convention in Baltimore in 1856, 
and subsequently supported Mr. Fillmore for the Presidency, he co- 
operated with the free-labor movement, and rapidly grew in favor 
with Republicans. 

As evidence of the esteem in which he was held throughout the 
country, it may be mentioned that in 1858 Harvard University conferred 
upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, an honor which this celebrated 
institution of learning is careful to bestow only on those who have 
earned it by distinguished public service. 



420 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



At the Chicago Repubhcan Convention in 1861, his name was pre- 
sented for the Presidency of the United States by moderate RepubH- 
cans, and was received with great favor. On the lirst ballot he received 
fortv-eight votes out of the four hundred and sixty-live cast. But Mr. 
Lincoln being considered the more desirable compromise between the 
friends of Mr. Seward and the conservative element, the name of 
Mr. Bates was withdrawn. 

After the election of Mr. Lincoln, the State Department was tendered 
to Mr. Seward, and to Mr. Bates any other office in the gift of the 
President, in or out of the Cabinet. He accepted the position of 
Attorney-General, for which his thorough knowledge of the law, 
and m.any years of experience in the practice of it, most admirably 
fitted him. The history of the great rebellion is still fresh in the minds 
of the American people, though the strifes and animosities it engendered 
are fast dying out. How well Mr. Bates bore his part during this 
exciting period, is a matter of public record. He was unflinching in 
his devotion to the Union, and favored the most prompt and vigorous 
measures for carrying on the war. One fact is stated in relation to his 
views of putting down the rebellion, which here deserves mention. At 
every cabinet meeting during the early years of the war, when others 
insisted on more active measures in the Potomac army, and worked 
themselves into an alarm about Washington, Bates advocated with all 
his eloquence an increase of the Western army, and more vigorous 
measures down the Mississippi. He insisted that when Vicksburg was 
taken, and the Mississippi river was clear to the mouth, the rebellion 
would be broken. In this view he was supported by the President, and 
the wisdom of his position was realized before the war ended. 

Mr. Bates was very much broken in health toward the close of 1864, 
and, believing that the good of the public service required a younger 
man as Attorney-General, he resigned the office and returned to his 
home in St. Louis. 

The public life of Mr. Bates ended here. His health continued 
feeble, yet for a few years he visited among his friends and relatives, 
and hopes were entertained that he might recover. His disease, how- 
ever, assumed a new form toward the close of 1868, and he rapidly 
sank under it. He died on the 25th day of March 1869, at his 
residence in St. Louis, surrounded by his family and intimate friends. 
The funeral was attended by a large number of the citizens of St. Louis 
and adjoining towns, Rev. Samuel J. Niccolls, D.D., pronouncing a 
solemn and eloquent discourse on the occasion. The body was 



HON. EDWARD BATES 



421 



buried at Bellefontaine Cemeteiy, in the famil}- lot. A da}^ or two 
after his death, a meeting of the St. Louis Bar was held, which was 
largeh^ attended. Hon. John F. Darby presided, and in an eloquent 
speech, recited many important facts in the life of the deceased states- 
man. Speeches were also made by Mr. Shepley, Mr. Hunton, and 
others. One of the resolutions offered by Colonel Broadhead was as 
follows : 

" He has filled high places of trust, both in the State and Nation, and following the 
maxim of Sir Matthew Hale, he discharged those trusts 'uprightly, deliberately and reso- 
lutely,' so that no man could say that he did not confer more honor on the office than the 
office did upon him; and he retired all the poorer for his public services, except in that 
«steem which follows the faithful discharge of duty." 

Mr. Bates was a firm believer in the Christian religion, and practiced 
its precepts through life. He joined the Presbyterian Church in 1824, 
and for many years was a ruling elder in that denomination. 

During the early years of the public school system in St. Louis, he 
was a member for some time of the Board of Directors, and took a 
lively interest in education. He believed in laying deep and broad the 
foundation of the school S3^stem, and those who now enjoy the benefits 
of our excellent public schools should not forget that he was one of the 
founders of the system. 



HON. JOHN FLETCHER DARBY. 



IN glancing- over the biographical history of our country, and 
especially the western country, any man who has not maturely 
thought upon the tendencies of our popular institutions, w^ould be 
astonished at the number of our eminent men who have raised them- 
selves from obscurity to the high places of power and usefulness by 
their own unpatronized energies. The fact, while it is a source of 
honest pride in every American heart, teaches a lesson of deep philoso- 
ph3^ It enables every right-thinking man to rise in his own estimation, 
and to put a just estimate upon his own intrinsic worth. It proves to 
him that the seeds of ability and virtue have not been hoarded up for a 
favored few, but have been sown broadcast among the people with a 
liberal hand, and that nothing is wanted to make them grow into plants 
of usefulness and honor but the virgin soil of a new country, and the 
light and heat of free insdtudons. Where the prize is open to all, 
many will contend for it, and, though all cannot gain the highest point, 
every effort to attain it is an advance toward die great end of individual 
and national prosperity, and a benefit alike to the public and to the man 
who makes the courageous effort. 

Judge Darby has earned a place in that honorable company of selt- 
made men, whose success in life makes us justh' proud of our countrv 
and its institutions. He is, in many respects, a peculiar man. He 
possesses a rare genius, and, although aware of his powers, is yet not 
misled by vanity and self-conceit, which so often happens. His knowl- 
edge of mankind and of the springs of human action is deep ; his 
perceptions are rapid and his judgment sound : his will strong and 
unflinching ; his manners are kind and obliging : his disposition generous 
and confiding ; his habits regular and abstemious, and his industrv 
untiring. Those qualities, brought into constant and energetic action, 
and directed by principles of high moral obligation, afford a satisfactory 
explanation of his success in all his undertakings, from his boyhood up. 
He learned, when a boy, the great truth, which few men learn during 
their lives, that energy is talent, and throughout his life he has acted 
upon that knowledge with unvarying success. 



424 



BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES 



John Fletcher Darby is a native of Person county. North Caro- 
lina : born on the loth of December 1803. His father, John Darb}-, a 
native of Lancaster county, Penns3'lvania, was carried to North Caro- 
hna in his childhood, and settling there, raised himself to comfort and 
competency by his industr}' and good conduct. He was a planter of 
cotton and tobacco. Of the middle rank, he was neither rich nor poor ; 
independent of his neighbors, yet dependent on his own industry and 
skill in the management of his small estate. In 1818, John Darby, the 
father, moved to Missouri with his family, including our subject, then 
under lifteen years of age, and settled, as a farmer, in the western part 
of St. Louis county. The old gentleman brought with him from North 
Carolina several negroes, but not enough to cultivate his new farm in 
the manner and to the extent he desired; and so the boy, Fletcher, 
(being so familiarly called,) was put upon the place as a regular hand. 
There, from 1818 to 1823, when his father died, he plowed, and hoed, 
and chopped, and 'tended the stock, and went to mill, as constantly as 
any other hand on the farm ; in short, during these five years he did the 
same kind of labor, and as much of it, as anv hand on the farm, — his 
father intending him for a farmer. 

Young Darb}^ being thus laboriously occupied in employments level to 
the capacity of the most ignorant, it might be supposed that, like them, 
he would be content with his humble lot, and find no time for the culture 
of his mind, and no incentive to higher and nobler actions. But with 
him it was far otherwise. There were many obstacles in his progress 
which a spirit less resolved would have deemed insurmountable, but 
they only served to nerve his courage and fix his purpose. "Where 
there is a will, there is a way." He knew the truth of that proverb, and 
boldly determined that, as no one had provided him a way, he would 
make a wa}' for himself. 

In his native home he had received the elements of a good English 
education, and, still better, had acquired a taste for books and formed a 
habit of reading. In Missouri, he kept alive that excellent habit amidst 
the labors of the farm. Of nights, on Sundays, and in the daily inter- 
vals of work, he eagerly read the few books that he could procure. As 
they were few, and he had no instructor, he read them on his own plan, 
revolved their contents in his mind, unbiased by other men's opinions, 
and drew from them his own conclusions. What he lost in this way, 
b}^ lack of instruction and advice, perhaps was compensated to him in 
the habit they forced upon him of self-reliance and mental independ- 
ence. The book that made the greatest impression on his mind, and 



HON. JOHN FI.ETCHER UARBY. 425 

probably tixed his character for Hfe, was Dr. FrankHn's Autobiography. 
He read it with perfect delight, for it taught him the solid reality of 
what before then had fluttered before his mind onh' as a bright vision 
of hope, that every man ma}' be the maker of his own fortune and 
fame. He was now resolved. His purpose was fixed to overcome all 
obstacles, and as a public man to run an honorable course, doing good 
for himself and his country. 

It is pleasant and instructive to watch the workings of an ingenuous 
mind struggling for a higher level, and the early history of Judge Darby 
is rich in such instruction. The patient industry, the active zeal, the 
shrewd contrivance to save time and labor, and all directed to the ac- 
complishment of the one engrossing object, are worthy the respect and 
regard of all men, and present an example full of encouragement and 
hope to the young and unbefriended. Young Darby eagerly read, dur- 
ing moments snatched from the labors of the farm, after nightfall, and 
on Sundays, all the works that he could borrow, and by this course of 
miscellaneous reading and hard study, he constantly increased his store 
of knowledge. He went to St. Louis, and with what litde mone}- he 
had been able to raise, purchased Hutton's Mathematics, and boldly 
ventured, without an instmctor, upon the study of that abstruse science. 
He never wasted his monev in the purchase of finery, or in idle or mis- 
chievous dissipation. Soon afterward he borrowed a compass and 
chain, and went about the farm and neighborhood surveying fields and 
meadows, in order to prove to himself that he practically understood 
the principles which he had labored so hard to learn. 

Down to this time, young Darby knew no language but his mother 
tongue, and probably thought Latin and Greek beyond the possibility 
of his condition. But a small circumstance changed his mind in this 
particular. There was in the neighborhood, a gentleman of education 
and talents. Colonel Justus Post, who kept in his famil}- an accom- 
plished teacher for the instruction of his own children. A certain 
youth, who subsequentlv became an eminent merchant (now dead) in 
this citv, was sent to that family school as a boarder, and being of a 
social and friendh- turn, soon made acquaintance with young Darby, 
although their pursuits and prospects were so ver}' different. Darby. 
finding that his new friend was studying Latin, came to the desperate 
resolution, without counting the odds, of stud34ng Latin too. To will 
was to do. The next time he went to town, as he had bought Hutton's 
Mathematics before, he bought a Latin grammar and dictionary, and 
the wav he studied the noble language of the Romans would sound like 



426 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

a marvel, if told to the methodical instructor and well-trained pupils of 
the best preparatory school in the countr}-. He learned the Latin 
grammar literally between the plow handles. This was his method — 
going to work in the morning, he put his grammar in his bosom ; when 
he turned his horse into a long row of smooth ground, where he could 
steady the plow with one hand, he pulled out his book, and studying as 
he walked, committed to memory sentence by sentence, and seldom 
failed to have mastered b}' noon, a lesson as long as the daily task 
of a boy in our grammar schools, who has nothing else tp do. At 
noon, the hour of rest and refreshment tor man and beast, as he rode 
his horse to water at the creek, he repeated over and over the lesson 
he had just learned, in order to know that he had safely mastered it, 
and had garnered up for future use, that much of his intellectual crop. 
In this manner he thoroughl}^ learned the whole Latin grammar, and 
commenced reading Latin in the course of one summer's plowing. 
This great feat accompHshed (and it was trul}' great), we need not 
wonder that the aspiring young farmer, with the aid of an occasional 
lesson from Mr. Russel, the accomplished teacher at Colonel Post's, 
soon learned to read and to relish, the classic beauties of Ovid and 
Virgil. 

Early in the year 1823, both his parents died suddenly, and Fletcher, 
having no other arrangements made, could do no better for the present 
than remain and continue his labor on the farm. So with his own hands 
he raised a crop of corn, which, when ripe, he sold as it stood in the 
field for one hundred dollars. With this small outfit, he started on a 
visit to his aged grand-parents (William and Jane McDaniel, ) in North 
Carolina, and made the whole journey on horseback. They received 
him with all possible kindness, and were read}^ to do anything in their 
power for his benefit. And he, still true to his one great object, availed 
himself of their generosity, and for a year and a half devoted himself 
exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek, under the instruction of 
the Rev. William Bingham, of Orange county. North Carolina, one of 
the most accomplished scholars in the Southern country, and otherwise 
improved himself by the advantage which time and comparative leisure 
had given him for more general and miscellaneous reading. 

In the summer of 1825, he applied for an appointment in the military 
academy at West Point, but not being backed by friends of sufficient 
influence, he failed to obtain it, and returned home to find, or to make, 
some other safe road up the hill of life. His early self-instruction had 
indelibly impressed upon his mind whatever he read and studied, and 



HON. JOHN FLETCHER DARBY. 427 

he was certainly better prepared for the mixed labors and conflicts of 
social life than many young gentlemen who come creditably out of 
college with their degrees of A. B. in their pockets. He had studied 
in the school of adversity, and learned to depend upon himself, and to 
feel his ability to conquer difficulties by patient industry. He studied 
alone, and although, doubtless, he lost much by the want of instruction, 
yet he gained at least originality ; he was forced to think for himself, 
and thus his thoughts, whether good or bad, wise or simple, were his 
own, and not merely the remembered thoughts of other men. 

This is emphatically a country of law ; our government is nothing 
but law ; and most of the great functionaries are men of the law. The 
people love and honor the law, because it is the only legitimate 
sovereign. The}- respect and cherish it, because it is the only safe- 
guard of the feeble ; the only protection of right against power. And 
hence, when a young man of sense and spirit and honest ambition is 
out of employment, he is almost sure to take to the law. And so it was 
with Darby. He sold out a portion of his interest in his father's estate 
for a few hundred dollars, and with that slender provision went to 
Frankfort, Kentucky, to study law. i\t first he obtained a place in the 
office of Mr. Patrick Henry Darby (no relation of his, but a brother 
of the celebrated geographer, William Darby). Mr. P. H. Darby, 
though esteemed an able lawyer, was so engrossed by the strife of 
party politics, that his office was neither pleasant nor profitable to a 
devoted student of the profession ; and Fletcher, consequently, soon 
changed his position. At the time, Thomas F. Marshall, who after- 
ward became so distinguished "as a brilliant orator and a man of talent* 
was studying in Frankfort under the late John J. Crittenden, and Mr. 
Darby was so fortunate as to make an arrangement with Mr. Marshall 
to room and study together. Many are the reminiscences related by 
Mr. Darby of "poor Tom," and his erratic career at that time, most of 
which have never appeared in print. The young man perusing this 
sketch may find it instructive, however, to contrast the careers of these 
two men. Mr. Marshall, when stricken down with his last illness 
and informed that he must soon die, was asked some question looking 
to a preparation for another world, when he promptly stopped the 
inquirer and said : 

"No, sir; no, sir; I do not wish to pray. I had no hand in coming into this world; 
/ /lave failed in all that I have ever seriously attempted or desired whilst in it ! I shall 
make no arrangements for my departure, nor for another existence. If God has managed 
the matter so far, I shall permit Him to continue so as best pleases Him." He 



428 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

dismissed the subject and referred to it no more. After remaining silent for some 
time, as if musing, he said: "Well, well, this is the end. Tom Marshall is dying; 
dying, not having a suit of clothes in which to be buried; dying upon a borrowed 
bed, covered with a borrowed sheet, in a house built by charity. Well, well, it is 
meet and proper." 

This pleasant course of stud}- with Mr. Marshall continued for some 
time, and until his money gave out — an accident which many a young- 
man would have considered a serious misfortune. But it was no great 
matter to Mr. Darby ; he was used to being out of money. He made 
his case known to Mr. Swigert, Clerk of the Supreme Court of Ken- 
tucky, who kindly gave him employment in the wa}' of copying for the 
office. His wages thus earned were quite sufficient to support him to 
the end of his legal course of study. It was hard work, certainly — 
studying all day and writing half the night — but he was well used to 
hard work, and did not mind it. He had a great end to gain, which, in 
his estimation, would have justified the means if they had been twice as 
hard. In due time he received a license to practice in the Supreme 
Court of Kentucky, and, returning to Missouri, read lor a short time in 
the office of Mr. Gamble, subsequently the presiding Judge of the 
Supreme Court, in order, before commencing the practice, to review 
his former studies, and familiarize himself with the local statutes and 
decisions. 

In May 1827, Mr. Darby took license in Missouri, and commenced 
his professional life. His success was rapid and great. In a few years 
he had a run of business as large and lucrative as that of an}- member 
■of the St. Louis Bar — a Bar which abounded in talent, professional 
learning and laborious habits. At the outset, his practice was confined 
chiefly to the pecuniary afiairs and common business of society, in 
which department he was eminently successful, and was well paid for 
his labors. As time advanced and opportunit}' for study was offered, 
he progressed in his knowledge of the law, and extended his business 
into ever}^ department of practice. His success in the management 
of his cases through years of practice, affords abundant proof of his 
ability in conducting them. In arguing his cases before a jury, he was 
eminently successful ; and in the closing speech before a jur}^ he had 
few, if any, superiors at the Bar, winning and obtaining verdicts against 
the ablest and strongest members of the profession, and not unfrequently 
against the instructions of the court. 

But it is not only, nor indeed chiefly, as a practicing lawyer, that Mr. 
Darby has been conspicuous and useful to the community in which he 



HON. JOHN FLETCHER DARBY. 429 

lives. He has tilled many important and responsible oifices, always, we 
believe, by popular election. He has never held an office by executive 
appointment. He has served in the city council as alderman. He was 
a favorite with the people as a popular stump orator. Mr. Darby was 
elected Mayor of St. Louis in April 1835, *o'' the first time, and was 
Mayor four successive terms. He was young, efficient, enterprisin^^ 
and energetic, and devoted himself to the promotion of its rising great- 
ness. He established the Mayor's Court, and took vigorous steps to rid 
the city of idlers and corrupters of the public morals. The prompt 
punishment of a few of the most prominent among them, by imprison- 
ment, so intimidated the fraternity that they gave him a wide field to 
exercise his authority over, and the city enjoyed good order during 
his administration, at a small cost. 

Whilst Mayor, Mr. Darby got an act passed for the sale of the 
commons, with the consent of the inhabitants, who had a right to vote 
on that occasion ; and finding that the city was paying ten per cent, 
interest on its habihties, he borrowed fifty thousand dollars at six per 
cent., which greatly relieved its financial embarrassments. He advo- 
cated the purchase of public squares, as parks and parade grounds, 
and through his influence Washington Square was purchased from 
Mr. T. H. Smith, for $35,000 : to-day it is worth $2,000,000. In 1836, 
he urged the necessity of sending memorials to Congress, to induce that 
body to complete the great national road through from Washington to 
St. Louis. 

In i838-'39, Mr. Darby, whilst a member of the Senate of Missouri, 
introduced a bill for the charter of the Iron Mountain Railroad, which 
however failed, from the fact that Illinois, at that time, stood on the 
verge of bankruptcy owing to her railroad mania. 

In August 1850, Mr. Darby was elected a member of Congress, and 
his friends, relying upon his sound judgment and eminently practical 
character, looked to him confidently for useful and valuable services — 
not in party arrangements and electioneering schemes, but in the solid 
business of the country. But unfortunately, on his way to the seat of 
government, he received a severe contusion by an accident on a boat, 
which resulted in paralysis of the extremities, depriving him for a long 
time of the use of his hands and feet, and the full use of which he has 
not yet recovered. Fortunately his head and heart were untouched by 
the blow^ At the ripe age of seventy-two, his mind is as bright and 
his affections as warm as ever, and his jocund spirit still sheds its 
cheerful light on all around him, and this takes away more than half 



430 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



the evils of his misfortune. In Congress he secured the sum of 
$115,000 for completing the Custom-house and Post-office ; was mainly 
instrumental in getting the grant of land to the Pacific Railroad 
Company, and the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad ; also the con- 
sent of the General Government to the right of way for the Iron 
Mountain Railroad through the grounds of the Marine Hospital, 
Arsenal, etc. Mr. Darby was also at one time, engaged in the 
banking business, the firm being Darby & Poulterer. 

In 1836, he married a lady of Ste. Genevieve, a daughter of Captain 
Wilkinson, United States Armv, and a member of the numerous 
family of Valle, one of the most intelligent and influential connections 
among the French provincials. By this lady he has reared a numerous 
family, who may well feel an honest pride in the well-earned reputation 
of their father. At this writing, Mr. Darby is in the enjoyment of 
excellent health, and works hard daily in his office and in the courts. 



ADOLPHUS MEIER. 



C_A )D0LPHUS MEIER, as a merchant and manufacturer, has occu- 
tLjL^ pied, for man}' years, a leading position in our midst. In respect 
to the development of Western resources, his hne of action seems to 
have been founded entirely upon his own judgment, and to have met 
with an extraordinary measure of success. Acting thus upon his indi- 
vidual opinion and discernment, he has given to St. Louis some of her 
most substantial improvements, and has demonstrated the value of 
sources of wealth that might, without his aid, have lain dormant. 

He was born in the city of Bremen, German}^, May 8, 1810. His 
father was a citizen of influence and position in his native city, and gave 
his son the best of educational facilities, which were not neglected. 
Upon the completion of his education, he entered a banking house, 
where he remained three 3'ears, and afterward spent some time in a 
shipping house. In 183 1, he commenced business on his own account, 
and met with gratifying success from the outset. Four years later, in 
1835, ^^ was married to Miss Anna R. Rust, daughter of a merchant in 
his native city. 

Having, in the course of his business, furnished passage to many 
ship loads of emigrants, he had, of course, investigated the advantages 
which the new country offered. The arguments were such as to induce 
him to emigrate himself in 1836. It is especially noticeable in this con- 
nection that, although the tide of emigration at that time was principally 
toward the Atlantic seaboard, Mr. Meier landed at New Orleans, in 
February 1837, and at once proceeded to St. Louis. This was, at 
that earh' da}', the city of his hope, and the event has proved that he 
judged wisely. Here he opened a handsome store, and conducted a 
successful business. In 1844, he built in St. Louis the first mill for the 
manufacture of cotton west of the Mississippi River. This was a suc- 
cessful enterprise, and a beneficial one to our city, and it was enlarged 
and afterward moved to more spacious buildings prior to 1857, when it 
was entirelv consumed bv fire. 



432 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



Soon after the destruction of the factory a stock company was formed, 
which rebuilt and continued the business. Mr. Meier became presi- 
dent of the Company, and has ever since personally directed its opera- 
tions. 

In the building of railroads he has taken an active part, and sub- 
scribed liberally to stock. He is now president ot" the Illinois and St. 
Louis Railroad, running from Belleville to St. Louis. This road was 
projected and built by manufacturers, river men, and others interested 
in securing fuel at reasonable and uniform rates. Its opening inaugu- 
rated the season of cheap coal in St. Louis, and has been productive of 
the greatest good in this respect. It made many classes of manufac- 
turing profitable here that were formerly at the mercy of a monopoly. 
Mr. Meier is vice-president of the Kansas Pacific Railway. He is a 
careful, conscientious thinker, and a keen investigator of our local and 
national requirements. Liberal curiosity, in conjunction with business, 
and a desire for information, has led him to travel all over the United 
States, including the Pacific coast. He has revisited Europe seven 
times since making his home here. Most of these trips have been 
impelled by a desire for information bearing upon his business plans. 
Perhaps the most enduring and massive monument of his activity and 
enterprise, is to be found in the Meier Iron Works, situated at a point 
opposite the southern part of the city, on the Illinois shore. The station 
on the East St. Louis and Carondelet Railway has been named Besse- 
mer Station, in honor of the distinguished inventor who discovered the 
process of manufacturing steel directly from the ore. The works have 
been built in the most substantial manner, combine all the latest improve- 
ments, and are very extensive. The daily production is estimated at 
one hundred tons of pig iron. 

Unlike many others who have rendered inestimable service to our 
city in creating new sources of wealth, Mr. Meier has not confined his 
operations to any specialty, but has given impartial consideration and 
substantial support to numbers of worthy and lucrative undertakings. 
In this he has not waited for others to point out the way, but has acted 
in accordance with his own judgment, and vindicated the correctness of 
his conclusions. It is comparatively easy, and not at all hazardous, to 
follow in the path of demonstrated success, yet we sometimes fail in 
sufficiently honoring the men who first blazed the way and took the 
risks inseparable from the first step. Mr. Meier's name is widely and 
honorably known in two hemispheres as a merchant of probity and 
sagacity, and a citizen of exemplary virtues and endearing social 
qualities. 



JOHANNES LUDEWIG. 



IN almost e\en" community, certainly in every large city, there grow 
up men whose activit}' and labors could not be subtracted from the 
general sum without leaving a wide gap, and whose efforts, exerted 
as they primarih' are for their indi\'idual good, reflect a beneficent influ- 
ence upon all other citizens who come in contact with them. Societ}' 
impresses its obligations upon all. It demands that, as there is an 
almost illimitable obligation forced upon each individual, he shall at 
least pass something to the credit side of his account. As a ver}' con- 
siderable proportion of men, however, try to shirk this obligation, — and 
actually do shirk it, so far as they are able to do so, — it is only by men 
of large and liberal views that the balance is maintained. Such men 
pay oft' the assessments that civilization has levied upon scores of other 
men. Without them, civilization would be rendered impossible, unless 
means could be invented to coerce the defaulters. 

Johannes Ludewig, in person and mind, was fitted for an unusual 
amount of exertion, and he has carried out, so far, the manifest destin}* 
of his organization. He was born in Hanover, Germanv, December 28, 
1820. He attended the military school of his countrv in his youth, 
where he received a good education, the instruction embracing the 
languages and scientific and practical branches. After leaving school, 
he served for four and a half years in the Hanoverian army. Having 
then decided upon coming to America, he landed in New Orleans on 
the 20th of October 1845. From there he made his way to Cincinnati, 
and then, with the little money he had brought with him, started out to 
peddle in Kentucky. This he abandoned in two weeks, and returned 
to New Orleans, with the intention of going back to Germanv- In fact, 
he contracted for a passage back, but changed his mind and went up 
Red River. Near Alexandria, he picked cotton on plantations for a 
short time, and then came to St. Louis in January 1846. Soon after 
his arrival here, he engaged in gardening for Dr. Beaumont, two miles 
from the cit3% and remained there two and a half years. The money 
he received for his labor he invested in land in Quincv, Illinois, which 



434 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



he Still holds and which is very valuable. He was then on the river 
about two and a half years, in the old steamer Alex. Scott, in various 
positions. Then, for two years, he was porter in the dry goods house 
of Theodore Kim. 

His entrance into the wholesale hat and cap house which he now 
owns, was as porter for Mr. Whitcomb. The second year he was with 
the house, he became a salesman, and worked in that capacity up to 
1857, when he became a full partner with a half interest in the busi- 
ness, under the name of Crapsten & Ludewig. 

In December of 1858 Mr. Crapsten died, and Mr. Ludewig, as 
surviving partner, became sole proprietor, and has ever since conducted 
the business under his individual name. He was a director in the 
United States Savings Institution, and one of the founders and tirst 
vice-presidents of the Guardian Savings Bank. During his commercial 
operations, he has found time to engage in many schemes for develop- 
ing the resources of the State, and these have all been successful and 
profitable. He is now vice-president of the St. Louis French Window 
Glass Company, and has been an untiring and valuable worker in that 
promising and important industry. He purchased a tract of land in 
Jefferson Count}', Missouri, on which stands the famous hill called 
Rockford. The mineral wealth of the hill cannot be perfectly esti- 
mated now, but enough is known to prove that it is comparatively as 
valuable to the owner, and far more valuable to others, than the 
wonderful lamp of Aladdin. Its value to the glass business arises from 
its containing an article of white sand, than which, say good judges, 
there is nothing superior in the world. The sand is shipped to England 
to make fine glass, and is also used here in making the window glass 
of the compan}^ 

Mr. Ludewig is still in the prime of life, and his friends expect that 
the remainder of his days will witness the accomplishment of results 
by him, which will place his name among the foremost of those whose 
energy and capacity are making St. Louis the future Great City of the 
World. 




^-^^'^ J^^^^'^"^ ^ 



V 




GEORGE R. TAYLOR. 



aEORGE R. TAYLOR, the subject of the following sketch, has, 
aided b}^ his superior force of character and public spirit, im- 
pressed himself firmly on St. Louis and Missouri by his many labors 
to promote the public interest of each, and to contribute to the welfare 
of their people. For many years he has stood as a representative man 
of St. Louis, and by his deeds of character and honor, the story of his 
life forms an important part of the history of the community where he 
belongs, and where he has passed so many years of his useful life. 
The value of biographical history is, that it necessarily connects with 
the history of important men, most of the events and enterprises that 
occur in the community or the country during the greater portion of 
their lives, thus making such sketches of a two-fold value. The biog- 
raphical work of representative men of St. Louis could hardly be 
considered complete without a sketch, however brief, of the man whose 
name stands at the head of this article. 

George R. Taylor is a Virginian by birth. His ancestry was of 
English origin, and came to this country at an early day. His lineage, 
both on his mother's and his father's side, can be traced back to the 
other side of the Adantic, to families distinguished for ability and 
high social rank. His great-grandfather, George Taylor, of Pennsyl- 
vania, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
His mother was a Marll, and a direct descendant of the house of 
Marlboroug'h . 

He was born in Alexandria, Virginia on November ii, 1818. His 
father, Evan P. Taylor, was engaged in manufacturing and mercandle 
pursuits at that place, but dying when George was but six years old, his 
education devolved upon his mother. Devodon to her child decided 
her to give her son as good an education as she could, with a view 
that, when old enough, he could choose the law for his profession. 
Upon completing his education, he commenced reading law under 
Thomas Serames, Esq., of Alexandria, one of the most disdnguished 
lawyers of the time, and remained here pursuing closely his legal 



^T^6 BIOGRAPHIC A I. SKETCHES. 

Studies for a period of two years and a half. Afterward he went to 
Staunton, Virginia, where there was a law school of high repute under 
the charge of Judge Thompson, an eminent jurist. After enjo3'ing the 
benefit of that institution, he returned to Alexandria in 1841, taking 
^^■itll him a license to practice in his profession under the then laws of 
Virginia, signed by Judges Smith of Rockinghan, Douglas of Jefferson, 
and Thompson of Augusta counties. 

Durinp; the course of his studies, he had brought areat industry and 
labor to bear in perfecting himself in his profession, and it atlbrds us 
pleasure to make mention of his many accomplishments, his thorough 
culture and his strict integrity. Young Taylor was now well qualified 
to enter upon the duties of life. It was natural that a voung man of 
his high spirit and ambitious views should seek a broader and more 
•promising field than Alexandria presented for the practice of his 
profession: and with this object in view, he made up his mind to 
remove West, and fixed upon St. Louis as the point at which he Would 
locate. He came to St. Louis in June 1841, when the city was dix'ided 
into five wards, and when several important criminal events and trials 
had either taken place, or \vere about to be disposed of. Animated bv 
high and, honorable motives and possessing a high degree of frankness, 
lie soon made a favorable impression and numbered among his friends 
some of the most prominent citizens of St. Louis. He was fortunate in 
forming a partnership with Judge Wilson Primm, which continued until 
the year 1849. 

On x\ugust 9. 1846. Mr. Taylor married Miss Theresa L. Paul, 
daughter of Gabriel Paul, of this city, and grand-daughter of Colonel 
Auguste Chouteau, a name so well known as connected with the early 
history of St. Louis. His marriage was a happy one and resulted in a 
good home and a large and worth}' famih'. 

Since Mr. Taylor has been a resident of St. Louis, he has been 
identified with public measures that have been prolific of the greatest 
good to St. Louis and Missouri. His personal popularity and public 
spirit caused him to be sought for as a public officer, to aid in directing 
the municipal affairs of the city. And though a bronchial affection 
caused him to abandon the acti\'e practice of the law in 1848, he 
speedily engaged in more active and public duties of other kinds. 

In 1848 Mr. Taylor was elected a member of the Common Council 
from the Second (now the Fourth) Ward, being a resident of that 
ward at the time, and as showing the esteem and confidence in which 
he was held, the position was filled bv him for ten consecutix'e years. 



GEORGK R. TAYLOR. 437 

During- this time, he was active in securing to the city many works ot 
great pubhc good, and in the erection of which his name is promi- 
nently identitied. 

In 1S50 he was elected to the City Council on the Whig ticket, and 
was by that body elected its president. Mr. Christian Kribben was his 
opponent on the Democratic ticket. On account of some official act of 
his, the Missouri Republican, then the leading Whig paper of the city, 
bitterh' denounced him, and he at once resigned his place in the Coun- 
cil, in order to appeal to the people. A new election was ordered, and 
Mr. Ta3'lor was made the candidate of the Democratic party, while 
Mr. Kribben became the Whig candidate. Mr. Taylor was triumph- 
antly, re-elected to the Council, and, being again elected by that body 
its president, retained the position as long as he was a member of it. 

In 1857 he was nominated on the Democratic ticket for Mayor, and 
was beaten by Mr. O. D. Filley. This closed his official career in 
municipal affairs. Resigning his seat in the Council, he devoted liis 
entire services in assisting to build the Pacitic Railroad. In 1853 he was 
nominated by the Democrats for the Legislature, but declined to be a 
candidate. In 1861 he was nominated on the Union ticket for delegate 
to the Constitutional Convention, but decHned to run, because of more 
important duties connected with the welfare of the State. 

Mr. Taylor was elected President of the Pacific Railway, and held 
the office for ten years. At the time of his first election the road was 
built to Tipton. It had no mone3^ ^^^ there seemed to be no conceiv- 
able way to raise any, to extend the road to the State line. But the 
accession of the new president and directory ga\e confidence to the 
people, and stimulated them to new^ endeavors. Mr. Taylor saw the 
importance and necessity of pushing on the work on the road and 
reaching the State line as earl}^ as possible. On several occasions he, 
as well as the directors, was compelled to pledge his own private for- 
tune to secure means and the right of way, and to promote the interest 
of the road. 

During the time Mr. Taylor w^as president of the road, he proved 
himself to be equal to the most trying financial and executive emer- 
gencies. When he was called to take charge of the road it was bank- 
rupt. When the troubles of the civil war came, and many portions of 
the track, as well as bridges and other property, were often destroyed, 
it required superior ability, as well as great personal popularity, to so 
manage the affairs of the road as to make it of any value to the stock- 
holders and the public. During the war his labors were of the most 



438 BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES. 

trying kind, and when it became necessary, for the protection of the 
road, to organize the mihtia of the State, Mr. Ta^dor was made Colonel 
of one regiment. 

When, subsequently, Daniel R. Garrison was called upon to complete 
the road, and was chosen its vice-president, Mr. Taylor was one of his 
most active supporters, and was willing to pledge his entire fortune in 
sustaining Mr. Garrison in completing it, an end which was accom- 
plished in 1865. Up to 1868 Mr. Taylor and its officers managed the 
Pacific Railroad with great success ; when, finding the road in a healthy 
condition, he resigned the office of president, to attend to his own pri- 
vate business and watch over the health and education of his children. 

During the difl^erent terms he served in the Common Council he was 
liberal in his municipal polic}^ and always solicitous for the welfare of 
the city. In all measures to promote the general good he has taken a 
prominent part, and, without assistance, he had the nerve to build Bar- 
num's St. Louis Hotel. 

In 1849, after the desti^uction by fire of a large portion of the lower 
part of the city, he was the first to propose and advocate the widening 
of Main street, whose original narrow dimensions were so unsuitable to 
the magnitude of its business. 

To this efiect, a resolution introduced in the Council by him was 
adopted, and Main street was widened. He then proposed the widen- 
ing of the levee, by purchasing Commercial street, and adding it to the 
narrow strip of land forming the levee, which is often so uncomfortabh 
loaded and jammed by the business which now forms the immense 
commerce of St. Louis. Had his views been carried out, we should 
have had a levee creditable to the city and sufficient for the comfort 
and extent of the business which is transacted upon it. At his sugges- 
tion, a piece of land was purchased for the purpose of erecting a Cit}' 
Hall, but an opportunity to re-sell it, at a considerable advance, ofter- 
ing, it was sold and dedicated to other purposes. 

Mr. Taylor has always been friendl}" to the railroad policy of St. 
Louis and Missouri, and acted as secretary to the first meeting that 
was held at the Planters" House for the purpose of organizing plans for 
building the Pacific Railroad. 

Up to a recent period the buildings of St. Louis were sadly deficient 
in height — and to him belongs the credit of creating a new era in 
building. He was the first to erect a six-story house in St. Louis, and 
people finding the style of architecture, which height necessarily gives, 
advantageous, soon followed his example ; and loftier buildings com- 



GEORGE R. TAYLOR. 439 

menced to go up which were in marked contrast with the pigmy 
architecture formerly in fashion. St. Louis for man}' years had been 
in want of a first-class hotel, and several attempts had been made to 
supply the necessity, by meetings, subscriptions to stock, etc., but all 
of the eftbrts made had resulted in nothing. This public necessity was 
supplied by Mr. Taylor, who had the spirit and enterprise to build, 
unsupported, the large structure known as Barnum's St. Louis Hotel, 
which was two years in building, and cost two hundred thousand 
dollars. He was also the leading spirit to bring into existence the 
Merchants' Exchange, which was reared on the site of the "Old 
Market," on North Main street ; and so satisfied were the stockholders 
with the active part that he took in this enterprise, that, in appreciation 
of his services, they presented him with a superb set of silver as a 
testimonial, at a cost of $i,ooo. He was president of the board of 
trustees who had charge of the building ; and continued in that trust for 
several years. When the cit}- was suffering, many years ago, for a 
building suitable for a post-office, he organized an association, of which 
he was elected president, and built on the place to which the post-office 
was removed, and continued for man}- years — on the corner of Second 
and Chestnut streets. 

Mr. Taylor is not only identified financially with many of the enter- 
prises of Missouri, but also with those of Kansas, being one of twelve 
to build the Missouri River Railroad, extending from Kansas City to 
Leavenworth — as well as the road connecting Atchison with the latter 
named city — which interests he yet retains. He is one of the original 
corporators of the St. Louis Railroad, and continues a director, owning 
now, as he did in its organization, one-twelfth of its entire stock. He 
also holds other important trusts. He is the vice-president of the Cit\" 
Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and was the president of the Atlas 
Mutual Life Insurance Company, the affairs of which he was detailed 
to adjust. 

Inheriting, with other propert}', the property opposite the " Mansion 
House," in Alexandria, Virginia, (made historic from the shooting of 
Ellsworth b}" its proprietor, Jackson, on the invasion of Virginia, at the 
■outbreak of the rebellion,) Mr. Taylor has handsomely improved it 
.since the close of the war — thus showing his love of the "old land," 
which is in no wise detrimental to the goodness of his heart, or to his 
patriotism. 

Socially considered, Mr. Taylor is a man genial and affable in his 
disposition, and possibh' without an enemy in the world. He is kind 



440 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



and generous, and always ready to contribute his share for worthy 
charitable and public enterprises. He was raised a Quaker, and is not 
indifferent to the humanitarian precepts of that semi-social religion. 

As a citizen, Mr. Taylor stands high in public esteem, and though he 
is now devoting his time to his own affairs and the welfare of his family, 
he is recognized by all who know him, as a worthy man, and one who 
has made his people better for his living. 



HENRY JOHN SPAUNHORST. 



iTENRY JOHN SPAUNHORST, the third son of Adam Henry 
-LJ- and Anna Maria Spaunhorst, was born January lo, 1828, at 
Belm, in the kingdom of Hanover. His parents had been born 
in that kingdom, and his father's occupation was that of a farmer. Of 
twelve children only four are now living. In the summer of 1835, ^^^*^ 
father concluded to emigrate to America. Having disposed of his 
property, the family bade adieu to their native land, and sailed from 
Bremen in an emigrant ship bound for New Orleans. In due course of 
time, the good ship arrived safely at her destined port, where the family 
disembarked, and, at the earliest opportunity, proceeded up the Missis- 
sippi River, objectively for St. Louis ; but before arriving at this city, 
they went to Louisville, Kentuck}', which place was reached in the fall 
of 1835. Here they remained until December of that year, when they 
resumed their journey to St. Louis, which was reached in the month of 
January, 1836. The date of their arrival seemed to be auspicious. 
During this and the preceding year, a heavy tide of immigration had set 
in, money was plenty, the city was prosperous, and there was plenty of 
employment to be obtained by those who were willing to work. With 
the natural inclination of the thrifty German, Henry's father was not 
disposed to remain idle, and he soon found employment in the extensive 
foundry and machine shops of Gaty, McCune & Co., where he re- 
mained until 1842. In the meantime, the father was solicitous that his 
children should obtain what education he could afford to give them, and 
Henry was sent to a private school, which he attended during the 
winters of i839-'40 and "41. His father, with a few other families, 
had been mainly instrumental in procuring the services, and defraying 
the expenses, of a German scholar to teach their children. This was 
the first and only opportunity Henry ever had of attending school, and 
here, commencing at the age of eleven years, he had laid the founda- 
tion of his character when he brought his school days to an end at the 
age of fourteen. In the meantime he had obtained a situation as a clerk 
in the retail grocery store of William Shrier, at a salary of sixteen 
dollars per month. This was a great assistance to him. It enabled 



442 



bioctRaphical sketches 



him to rely upon his own exertions for support, and atlbrded him a Httle 
spending money, which, after paying his actual necessary expenses, left 
him some small change, which he invested in the purchase of useful 
books. His rudimentary education had been suthcient to give him a 
keen thirst for information, and to engender a fondness for reading 
which would not permit him to spend in idleness and dissipation the 
time which remained to him after his day's work was done ; and here is 
the grand mistake that so many young men make during the first years 
of their business life. They seem to forget that, during these early 
vears, they enjoy about the only leisure they will ever have. Young 
Henry seemed to realize this fact, and so instead of idling away his 
time, he devoted all his spare moments to reading, culture and stud}^. 
He remained in the retail grocer}- business nearlv three years, but 
because of his strict attention to business, his salary was increased to 
twenty dollars per month. During this time the first communicants of 
German children were received in the Catholic Church at the St. Louis 
Cathedral, on Walnut street. Father Fisher, now dead, being the 
ofiiciating priest. Among these children was the subject of this sketch, 
who had, from his early childhood, been deeply imbued with that faith. 
Among the books he purchased, aside from historical works, were a 
good many religious works, which treated of the Church, and which he 
read with great care. 

In July 1842, his father's old love for an independent farm life 
returned, and the family removed to Franklin County, Missouri, where 
he purchased a farm and engaged in the pursuits of agriculture. Henry 
accompanied the family to the new home, and worked on the farm until 
the fall of 1844. In that 3"ear, with the consent of his parents, he 
returned to St. Louis, and soon afterward obtained a situation in a 
store, but shorth' afterward left to learn the milling trade. He sought 
and obtained employment in the old Franklin Mills of George P. Plant, 
recently deceased, where he remained long enough to be able to run 
the mill at night alone. This emplovment, however, did not seem to 
agree with him : he became sick, and concluded to return to the home 
farm and remain there. At intervals he engaged in buying country 
produce, which he brought to St. Louis and disposed of, making the 
journey in a wagon drawn by two horses, and camping out at night in 
coming and returning home. If, in these occasional trips, his profits 
reached the sum of ten dollars, he was satisfied. 

In September 1849, notwithstanding the cholera still lingered in the 
city, he concluded to return to St. Louis, and push his own wa}' 



HENRY J. SPAUNHORST. 443 

through the world having in this year attained his majority. His 
disposition to work at anything he could find to do, is shown in the 
fact that his first employment was carrying lead off the boats and piling 
it on the levee, for the compensation of twelve and a half cents per 
hour. At that time, nearly all the lead manufactured at Galena was 
shipped to this point, and there was plenty of this kind of work to be 
had. This avocation he followed only a short time, it not being very 
congenial to his tastes. He next obtained a situation in a wholesale 
grocery house, as porter, at a salary of five dollars per week. He 
remained here, however, until March 1850, when he accepted a posi- 
tion somewhat similar, in the wholesale grocery house of McMechan 
& Worthington. In the fall of that year the firm became McMechan 
& Ballentvne, and retaining his position, his salary was raised to 
seventy-five dollars per month. During this time he had familiarized 
himself with all the details of the business. He was industrious and 
faithful in the discharge of every duty devolving upon him, and never 
"shirked'" an}^ work that was to be done. His employers reposed the 
most implicit confidence in him, for they found him strictly honest to 
every obligation. Through the kindly assistance of the book-keeper of 
the firm, he learned the art of book-keeping. His habits of study and 
reading, and observation, he still cultivated assiduousl}'. He wasted no 
time in idleness. What money he had to spare was expended in the 
purchase of useful books. In social intercourse, he cultivated the 
society of intelligent and refined persons — both those of his own nation- 
ality and Americans. 

In February 1853, having saved some means, he commenced business 
for himself. The firm-name of this new wholesale grocery house was 
Spaunhorst & Co., his partners furnishing mainl}^ the capital that was 
necessary. A year later, the firm removed from their old quarters on 
Commercial street to larger and more commodious quarters on Main 
street, and the firm-name was changed to Spaunhorst & Hackmann, 
since which time, up to the present writing, no change has taken place. 
From the start, the firm has been successful in business — doing business 
on correct principles, and fulfilling ever}" obligation to the letter. 

Mr. Spaunhorst has held man}- positions of trust. He is a man of 
firm and determined purpose, of unswerving integrity of character, 
against whose honor the finger of suspicion even has never been 
pointed. There is something in the self-reliance and steadfastness of 
the man which none who know him can fail to admire. His con- 
nection with public and private institutions has been extensive. He was 



444 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

one of the original organizers of the Franklin Fire and Marine Insur- 
ance Company, and a director, which position he still retains. In 1858, 
he was one of the original organizers, and a director, of the Franklin 
Saving Institute, but withdrew from it 1866. He organized, with others, 
the Central Saving Bank, and is a director in the same, and, at the pres- 
ent time, its president. He was also one of the first directors in the 
Life Association of America, which place he still fills. He was one of 
the organizers, and president, of the German Homestead and Building 
Association. 

Religiously he is a confirmed and practical Catholic, and is connected 
with a number of institutions of a benevolent character which are closely 
allied to the Church. In 1850, he was mainly instrumental in founding 
the German St. Vincent Orphan Association, of which he has been 
secretary, treasurer and trustee at various times. He is connected, in 
various ways, with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, of which he became 
a member in 1849. This Society has now twenty-six conferences, of one 
of which he is the president. He is connected with the Catholic Protec- 
torate for Catholic children, and was its vice-president. He is presi- 
dent, and was one of the original organizers of the St. Joseph 
Benevolent Society, which now numbers a membership of five hundred 
and fifty persons. He is also president of the Catholic Benevolent 
Union of the United States, which numbers three hundred and fifteen 
distinct societies, and contains nearly fifty-five thousand members in the 
various States and Territories. Amid all the cares and responsibilities of 
his business, the man is so thorough!}^ practical and methodical, that he 
finds ample time to give the proper attention to all the various institu- 
tions with which he is connected. 

Politically, Mr. Spaunhorst is a Democrat from principle, and with 
that party he has always acted when it has lived up to the true doctrine, 
seeking to confer the greatest good on the greatest number. As a 
political leader, he exercises a vast power ; but he has never forced his 
way into politics to that extent that others have done. His perceptions 
are keen, and he is a close observer of passing events, and a good judge 
of men and their motives. His innate sense of right, as opposed to 
wrong, has made him a bitter and unrelenting enemy of all rings formed 
for the purpose of robbing the people. Here he shows himself to be a 
man of strong and peculiar character, and, without a full appreciation 
of his life, it cannot be fully understood. He is aggressive even to 
vindictiveness against the hordes of thieves and plunderers who seek 
oflice for the sake of the spoils. In attacking these men he is rigid and 



HENRY J. SPAUNIIORST. 445 

inflexible in his purpose, and never fears to assume a responsibility, if 
there is one to be assumed, in tearing down the wrong and building up 
the right ; and yet he is ever genial, pleasant, social and warm as a 
friend, and agreeable and instructive in conversation. Although never 
pressing himself forward, he has alwa^'s taken a lixelv interest in public 
affairs. 

In 1866 he was elected to the State Senate from the Thirty-third 
district, his personal popularity securing his election by a large vote 
from both parties. In 1868 his constituents returned him to the Senate, 
and when his time expired in 1873, he refused to become a candidate 
again. During his legislative career he was anxious that the State 
should have better insurance laws, and the present laws on the statute 
books are mainh' due to his exertions. He was considered a strong man 
in the Legislature, and any measure that met with his opposition stood 
a poor chance of getting through, if the public were in any way to be 
deleteriously aflected bv it. He was chairman of the Insurance Com- 
mittee, also of the Committee on Claims, and subsequently chairman 
of the Committee on Ways and Means, which positions he held for four 
years. He took strong grounds against the veto message of Governor 
Brown contemplating the payment of the State interest in gold instead 
of in currency. He also took strong ground against, and defeated, the 
bill requiring compulsory education. In local politics he has always 
taken more or less interest ; and exercises a large influence, especially 
over his own people, who are a power in the city. 

In 1872, he started the America newspaper, and was elected presi- 
dent of the company. Its capital stock is $150,000, of which one-half 
is paid in. The paper, flnanciallv, has been a success, and no demands 
have been made upon the stockholders for the past few years. During 
Governor Woodson's term of office, he was appointed president of the 
Board of Guardians, but this has since been abolished. In March 
1875, he was appointed one of the State Railroad Commissioners, bv 
Governor Hardin, which he refused to accept, although the salary is 
$3,000 per year. He is a member of the Constitutional Convention, 
now in session at Jefferson City. 

Mr. Spaunhorst married in 1850. the ffrst time. Miss Catharine 
Richter, a resident of this city, who died in 1852. In the fall of 
1854 ^^^ took for his second wife Miss Mariana Brunsmann, a resident 
of Washington, Franklin county, Missouri, by which marriage he has 
a family of four children — one bov and three girls. His father died at 
the homestead, in Franklin countv, in 1872. His mother is still living 



446 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

at Washington, Franklin county, and has reached the ripe age of 
seventy-five years. 

His home in this city is surrounded by all the comforts of life. He 
has an extensive library, well stocked with many valuable standard 
literarv and historical works, most of which he has read carefully 
through more than once. It affords us pleasure to make mention of 
the many accomplishments of this self-made, self-educated man ; of his 
thorough culture, his strict integrity, his fidelity to truth at all times 
and under all circumstances, and his eminent standing as a merchant. 
These are the men among our foreign-born population whom St. Louis 
delights to put forward as the true type of her representative men. 



HON. JOHN HOGAN. 



JOHN HOGAN was born in Mallow, County of Cork, Ireland, 
June 2, 1805. His father, Thomas Hogan, was the most exten- 
sive baker in that town, and carried on a large and lucrative busi- 
ness. During this period, the baking of bread was seldom done in 
private families, and the custom of the town was to resort to the bakers 
for the "staff of life." During the war of 1812, he was a contractor 
for the British army — furnishing it with supplies suitable for sea use ; 
when England was conducting her war against this country, Mallow 
was the principal place, outside of Cork, where these supplies were 
obtained. Thomas Hogan neither sympathized nor affiliated with the 
British, and after the war was brought to a close he concluded to dis- 
pose of his bakery in Mallow, and emigrate to the United States. x\c- 
companied by his son John, the subject of this sketch, he bade adieu 
to Erin's Isle forever, and landed at Baltimore in 1817. John's mother 
died when he was quite young. Thomas Hogan's prospects, upon his 
arrival at Baltimore, were not as favorable as he anticipated, and, within 
a few months, he was attacked with a fatal illness and died. Prior to 
his father's death, the son had been bound out as an apprentice to a 
boot and shoe maker, with whom he remained until he reached his 
majority. During his apprenticeship, he was faithful to his work, and, 
almost unaided, learned to read. What money he was able to earn, he 
spent for books. He was induced to attend Sunday school, where he 
obtained books, which he read carefully, and he treasured up in his 
memory what he read. During this period, he came across "Beatty's 
Moral Science," from which he learned that to read a large number of 
books is not necessary, but that those read should all be good ones ; 
that these should be read carefully and considerately, often meditating 
upon what had been read ; and that a good author should never be 
dropped until his sentiments and language were thoroughly mastered. 
At this time, also, a book written by Dr. Adam Clarke fell into his 
hands, in which was the author's letter addressed to a young minister. 
It contained some tine points, which young Hogan treasured up in his 
mind. Feeling the force of the religious influences with which he had 



448 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

surrounded himself, he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church when he was sixteen years of age. In 1825, he became super- 
intendent of one or two Sunday schools of that Church outside of Balti- 
more, though connected with the schools in the city. 

In Jul}' 1826, having completed his term of indenture, he was licensed 
to preach. In the fall of 1826, acting upon the advice of his friends, 
he came West with Bishop Soule, who presented him to the Illinois 
Conference. During the ensuing four years he was an itinerant Metho- 
dist preacher, traveling through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. In 1829, 
he w^as transterred to the Missouri Conference, making his removal in 
the fall of 1829, being stationed in St. Louis and St. Louis count}-. In 
the tail of 1830, he located from the itinerant ministry, and having sub- 
sequently married Miss Marv M. West, a resident of St. Clair count}', 
Illinois, he removed to Edwardsville, in Madison county, where he 
commenced mercantile life. About 1833, Alton began to take position 
as an important business point, and Mr. Hogan removed there. In that 
year, he became a member of the Whig party, and w^as untiring in his 
exertions to build it up. During that and subsequent years, he became 
famous as a Whig speaker. His name, as a stump orator of more than 
ordinary powers, had gone out all over the land, and his services, on all 
occasions of political excitement, were in great demand. 

In the earlv part of the summer of 1835, ^^ was expected that the 
two greatest statesmen of the age, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, 
would visit St. Louis. Prior to their expected coming, Mr. Webster 
addressed a note to Mr. Hogan, at Alton, requesting him to meet 
him in St. Louis. Greatly to the disappointment of the public, Mr. 
Clay w^as prevented from coming, but Mr. Webster, accompanied by 
his family, arrived. Mr. Hogan met Mr. Webster, and on the day 
following his arrival at St. Louis, a trip by river was made to Alton, on 
the old steamboat United States. In passing up the Mississippi, Mr. 
Webster requested Mr. Hogan to point out to him the Missouri River, 
when it should be reached, and which, at that time, came into the 
Mississippi at right angles, so that in passing its mouth, a good view of 
the Missouri could be had for a considerable distance up the stream. 
When the Missouri was reached, Mr. Hogan pointed it out to Mr. 
Webster. Mr. Webster stood upon the deck a few moments, surveying 
the turbid waters of that stream as they mingled w^ith those of the 
Mississippi, and remarked : "There is the great Missouri ; that is the 
great Andrew Jackson of a river ; that fellow takes the responsibility of 
tearing up banks as he chooses, and making banks wdiere he pleases." 



HON. JOHN HO G A N . 449 

Prior to joining the Whig party, Mr. Hogan had been a Democrat of 
the Jackson school. In 1836, he was elected to the Legislature of Illi- 
nois, as a Whig, from a strong Democratic county. The session of the 
Legislature during that year was an important one, and it included in 
its list of members many names which became distiniruished, and 
national, in subsequent years. Among a few of these we may mention 
General James Shields, Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, John 
Hardin, A. C. French, (subsequently Governor of the State,) O. B. 
Ficklin, (afterward in Congi'ess,) General James Sample, (subse- 
quently United States Senator and Minister to Guatemala,) John A. 
McClernand, O. B. Matteson, (afterward Governor of the State,) and 
others, who subsequently gained distinction. All of these gentlemen, 
with the exception of Mr. Lincoln, were in the Legislature for the first 
time, and between all of them there sprung up a friendship that no 
political difierence could ever sever. 

During the session of this Legislature, there was devised and adopted 
the system of public improvements which finally covered the State ; the 
system of railroads which has been carried out, and the Illinois and 
Michigan Canal, which was then burlesqued as the "deep cut." These 
improvements were considered, at the time, as far in advance of the 
age. The major part of the people considered all these grand schemes 
Utopian. Mr. Hogan was put forward as the champion of these 
improvements, and, in one of his speeches, made the statement that ''he 
expected to live to see the day when lUinois would be the third State 
in the Union in wealth, and when her population should number well on 
to five millions of people." The year 1837 was a year remarkable in 
financial annals. The few previous years had borne the impress of 
apparent prosperity : but 1837 was a year of terror, ruin and desolation, 
and Mr. Hogan, having indorsed largely, did not escape the financial 
storm. In that year he was elected Commissioner of the Board of 
PubHc Works, and in 1S38 he was elected president of the Board. In 
this year he was put forward as a candidate for Congress from that 
section of lUinois known as " Egypt," and took the field in that district 
against Governor John Re3molds, who was universally known as the 
" Old Ranger." Not having an}' paper to support him, he was defeated 
by fifteen hundred majority. 

In 1840 the great canvass of the Whig party came on, and General 
Harrison, the Whig candidate for President, was Mr. Hogan's personal 
friend. During this year, he was one of the most active and forcible 
speakers in defense of Whig principles anywhere to be found, and his 



450 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



services were in great demand. During this campaign, he traversed 
Indiana, Iowa, Ilhnois, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, speaking to 
great crowds wherever he went, and particularly at Nashville, in the 
latter State. In the spring of 1841, soon after General Harrison's 
inauguration, he was appointed Register of the Land Office at Dixon, 
Illinois. He remained here until removed by President Tyler, but was 
subsequently re-appointed. Toward the close of Tyler's administration 
he was again removed, for refusal to contribute money for campaign 
purposes. 

In 1845 he met with a severe domestic affliction, in the loss of his 
\\'if e . 

In the same year he removed to St. Louis, where he commenced 
business as a partner with the extensive grocery house of Edward J. 
Ga}^ & Co., and remained with this firm up to 1850. In the meantime 
he was again brought forward in politics, but when the Whig party 
undertook to shoulder the Know-Nothing party, he very naturally 
deserted it, and allied himself again with the Democracy. In May 
1849 ^ terrible conflagration visited the city, and left nothing but ruin and 
desolation in its track. All the best portion of the business part of the 
city was swept away within a few hours, and about the only wholesale 
grocery house left untouched by the flames was the house of Edward 
J. Gay & Co., the fire having been communicated from the burning 
boats lying along the levee to a building only two doors removed from 
their house, which thus narrowly escaped the flames. The excitement 
incident to the fire, and the terrible ravages of the cholera, which pre- 
vailed in a very malignant form at the same time, together with the 
large amount of business which was thrown upon the firm, caused 
Mr. Hogan to overtax both his mental and physical energies ; and, 
although a man of wonderful endurance and strictly abstemious habits, 
the terrible strain was too much for his nervous system, which received 
a shock from which he never recovered, but which gradualh^ increased 
as he advanced in years. 

In 1847 he married, for his second wife. Miss Harriet Garnier, 
daughter of Joseph V. Garnier, of this city, by whom he has four 
sons, grown up and occupying positions of usefulness. By his first 
wife he had two daughters. In 1850 he visited Columbia, Georgia, 
to attend the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, which assembled there in that year, and was requested by the 
Missouri Conference to urge St. Louis as the best point for the location 
of the Church book-publishing house. In this Mr. Hogan was not sue- 



HON. JOHN HO(JAN. 45 1 

cessful, and Nashville, Tennessee, was selected in place of St. Louis. 
During the same year he became agent for the Missouri State Mutual 
Insurance Company, and continued such for five years. During this 
period he wrote a great deal for the press, particularl}^ for the St. Louis 
Christian Advocate and Missouri Rcpiiblica)i. Among his writings 
was a review of the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 
West, being personal recollections ; and also a very interesting series of 
articles under the caption "Thoughts on St. Louis," which were widely 
read and copied. For the great good he accomplished in this w^ay, the 
mercantile community of this city united in a body and presented him 
with a beautiful and costly service of silver, on which was this inscrip- 
tion : "Presented to John Hogan, Esq., as a testimonial of regard for 
the many valuable statistics, both State and city, furnished by him from 
time to time, through the public prints of St. Louis." His articles on St. 
Louis were afterward published in pamphlet form, and were distributed 
to nearly all parts of the civilized world. 

During the great political campaign of 1856, between Stephen A. 
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, he again took to the political arena, and 
ably championed the "Little Giant" through that memorable canvass. 
Having contributed so largely to the election of Mr. Douglas, in 1858 
he was appointed postmaster of St. Louis, under the administration of 
James Buchanan. Upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, 
a tremendous pressure was immediatel}^ brought to bear for Mr. Hogan's 
removal, and Mr. Lincoln removed him in 1861. In 1858-9, he organ- 
ized, and was elected president and a director of, the Dollar Savings 
Institution, which was subsequently merged in what is now the 
Exchange Bank. In 1864, he was elected to Congress from the First 
Missouri district, which embraced the greater part of St. Louis and 
some two or three townships ; in which capacity he served his con- 
stituents well and faithfully. During his term he served upon the 
Committee of Ways and Means. While in Congress the question of the 
internal revenue tax came up, and Mr. Hogan opposed its application 
to the more important home industries, particularly on manufactured 
iron, which St. Louis was then just beginning to develop. The result 
was that the internal duty was taken off of pig iron and greatly reduced 
on manufactured iron, and other branches of manufacture in which this 
city w^as largely interested. 

An incident in his life, which it is well to mention, as illustrative of 
his broad and liberal christian views, occurred in the year 1859, ^^'hen 
the corner stone of the first Jewish temple built in this citv, and west 



45^ 



B I O G R A P 1 1 1 C A I. S K ]<: T C II K S . 



of the Mississippi River, was laid, on Sixth street, below Poplar. He 
had always been favorabh' impressed with the Jewish people, and on 
this occasion they had invited him to deliver an address, which he did, 
and was presented with a silver trowel with an ivory handle, the one 
used in laying the corner stone, and on which was engraved an appro- 
priate inscription. Perhaps this is the only instance on record where a 
similar service had been performed on so important an occasion, for 
and in behalf of this singular people, and by one whose race is the 
antipodes of the Jews. For this act he was censured b}- some bigots, 
who had always professed the warmest friendship for him : but he out- 
lived this censure, while most of those who set themselves up as the 
judges of his motives, have passed to the bar of the Great Judge, who 
judges all alike, irrespective of color, race or creeds. 

In the evening of life "Honest" John Hogan, as he has been familiarly 
called, "bears his vears and his honors nobly." At the age of seventy, 
he is still a remarkablv acti^'e man, although not engaged in any active 
emplo^'ment. From his quiet home near the western suburbs, he visits 
the busv cit^• which he has seen expand to its present dimensions, and 
walks with a tirni tread and erect form along its crowded thoroughfares. 
He is in the enjovment of excellent health, and whenever any grand 
enterprise is to be inaugurated, which shall add to the commercial 
renown of the metropolis, he is sure to be invited to take part in it, and 
to make a speech. He is an original thinker, a fluent and terse writer, 
and an impromptu and eloquent speaker — always writes and speaks to 
the point. His political principles are grounded in the Democratic 
faith, and probablv there is no one now living, among the stump 
speakers of the past, who has done more hard work, or made so man}- 
speeches, of both a political and commercial character. His has been 
a useful life, and it bids fair to be prolonged far beyond its three score 
and ten. He educated himself, and never in his life attended an}' but 
the Sunday' school. 



OLIVER A. HART. 



(ijROMINENTLY identiiied with a large number of interests of 
I magnitude, which have done much toward building up the com- 
mercial prosperit}' of St. Louis, stands the name of Oliver A. 
Hart, whose residence among us dates back over a period of thirty- 
eight years. Norwich, Connecticut, claims his birth-place, and it was 
here that he tirst saw the light of day, on the 13th of February 18 14. 
He is the oldest of a family of twelve children, all of whom are living, 
save two. His father, Eliphaz Hart, was a descendant of the old 
Puritan stock of New England, and settled in Boston at an early day. 
He married an estimable lady who was a native of Newport, Rhode 
Island, and a short time afterward removed to Norwich, where he 
commenced business at his trade of silversmith. Oliver's parents were 
industrious, frugal people, and after giving their son the benetit of a 
common English education, they put him, at the early age of sixteen, 
to learn the trade of architect and builder. At this vocation he con- 
tinued industriously until he arrived at the age of twenty-one, when he 
left home and went to Brookh^n, New York, as a journeyman. He 
was successful in procuring work, but remained here only a short time, 
perfecting himself in all the various branches of his calling, when, in 
1835, he remo^'ed to Mobile, Alabama, and engaged in business on his 
own account. His business prospered, and he was enabled by his 
economical habits, to la}- up some money ; but, anxious to obtain a field 
of greater enterprise to labor in, he made up his mind to remove to 
St. Louis, and so came here in May 1837. The panic of that year was 
disastrous to nearly all enterprises, and business in every part of the 
countr}' was depressed. It was a year of terror, ruin and desolation, 
caused by a financial panic that swept from one end of the Union to 
the other. Contracts which had been entered into in good faith, notes, 
due bills, bonds, mortgages, from the ruin of so man}^ banks, and the 
curtailment in the issue of the others, became impossible to be met, and 
all the business channels which depended upon their payment of obli- 
gations, became disordered and languished. Business firms by tlie 



454 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

hundred were wiped from existence, and people who had Hved in afflu- 
ence were reduced to penury. St. Louis did not escape the shock, and 
the prospects at that time, to a young man seeking his fortune in the 
world, were certainly anything but flattering. Mr. Hart, however, had 
been brought up in a somewhat rigid school, and he was b}- no means 
discouraged. He was again fortunate in securing work, and he entered 
the employment of Mr. Bartlett, the architect, for a short time. In due 
course, the financial storm had spent its force, and business began to 
brighten, so that 1839 ^'^^ ^ year pregnant with prosperity for St. 
Louis. Prior to this, we believe, the firm of Brewster & Hart had been 
formed. The population of the city in 1835 numbered about 15,000 
souls, but the tide of immigration was then setting in heavily, and the 
city was growing rapidlv- The firm of Brewster & Hart stood at the 
head of their profession, and as the city grew and enlarged its borders, 
their business steadily increased until it became very lucrative. 

In the year 1849, ^^ event occurred which will ever mark an era in 
the annals of St. Louis. On Thursday evening, the 19th of Ma}-, a fire 
broke out among the boats lying along the levee, which became, before 
it was extinguished, one of the most disastrous that had ever visited an}- 
Western city. From the boats the flames communicated to the city, 
and the whole value of property destro3'ed by the conflagration exceeded 
three million dollars. The vital functions of St. Louis, however, w^ere 
not to be seriously impaired by the calamity, and it was not long before 
the citizens and property-owners determined that the burnt district 
should be rebuilt. The rebuilding of the city gave an immense amount 
of work into the hands of the architects, and Mr. Hart, being among 
the most prominent, had a very large share of this to do. He was the 
architect and builder of nearly the entire burnt district, and hundreds 
of buildings in the city to-day attest his skill and handicraft. The First 
Presbyterian Church, in Lucas Place, w^as also built by him, besides 
many other buildings which it is not deemed necessary to mention here. 

These enterprises laid the foundation of Mr. Hart's fortune, which, 
hv judicious investment, has ranked him among the wealthy and 
responsible citizens of St. Louis. In 185 1 Mr. Hart retired from the 
business of architecture with a fortune. 

Mr. Hart has invested his means largely in enterprises that have been 
pecuniarilv successful. He is a heav}' stockholder in the immense iron 
and steel manufactories at South St. Louis, which rank among the 
largest in the world. He is one-fifth owner and vice-president of the 
Jupiter Furnace, the largest of its kind ever constructed. He is a 



OLIVER A. HART. 455 

director and one of the main founders of the Mechanics' Bank of this 
city ; is a director of the Missouri Pacific Raih'oad ; was one of the 
original incorporators and a director in the Real Estate Savings Insti- 
tution, but this position he has resigned ; is a large stockholder and 
president of the St. Louis Gas Works, with which he has been con- 
nected for a period of twenty-two years ; is also heavily interested in 
the Kansas City Gas Works, and a stockholder, besides being interested 
in some other smaller enterprises. He was also president of the 
Western Mutual Fire and Marine Insurance Company for seven 3'ears, 
which institution maintained a high reputation during his connection 
with it. Mr. Hart has frequently, of late years, been importuned to 
accept positions of trust, but these he has refused to listen to, on the 
ground that he had not the time to give them his personal attention. 
Mr. Hart married, in 1843, Miss Mary E. Hull, but he lost his wife in 
the year 1863, and has remained a widower since that time. He has 
four children who have grown up about him, and who are occupying 
positions of honor and usefulness. Mr. Hart, at the age of sixty-one. 
is in the enjoyment of excellent health, and is attentive in directing the 
management of all his business affairs. He is a kindly-disposed and 
courteous gentleman ; strict in all the business relations of life : his 
name is above reproach and his integrity has never been called in ques- 
tion. To all deserving charities he has ever been a liberal benefactor. 



GENERAL JOHN M'NEIL. 



•' Peace hath her victories not less renowned than war." 

/T\ HE vigor and activity which marked the career of General John" 
JL McNeil, in the great civil war by which he became so widely 
known, has characterized him in civil life before the war and 
since. So, too, the positive character, firmness of purpose, and unfal- 
tering adherence to his convictions of right, could be seen in all his 
course in private and civil life, as well as at the head of his command 
in the field. As early as 1844, he represented St. Louis in the Legisla- 
ture, and before the war was president of a prominent insurance com- 
pany, and vice-president of the Board of Underwriters. In all these 
positions, he was marked by his contemporaries as a man of thought 
and of will. Though never a violent partisan, he was always well 
informed and clear in his position upon all important political issues of 
the time, and he adhered to his principles in politics in that manlv spirit 
which proudly spurns the behests of party when they conflict with con- 
victions of right. We need not wonder, then, that upon the breaking 
out of the war between the States, he was among the first to take a firm 
stand. In the State of Missouri, and city of St. Louis, it was found 
that the adherents of either side were numerous, and, in many commu- 
nities and neighborhoods, almost equally divided. The bitterness of 
civil war, in all its horrors, existed in Missouri ; for, while in the other 
States the sentiment was almost unanimous for the one side or the other, 
and the conflict was onh' between armies, yet in this State, it was- 
carried on by neighbor against neighbor with the desperation of a per- 
sonal combat. General McNeil's convictions caused him to engage on. 
the Union side, and he served in the field to the close of the war. 

His father, a native of New York, was a fur trader in the Canadas 
and the Northwest. While thus engaged, the subject of our sketch was 
born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 4th of February, 1813. When 
still a lad, he was sent to Boston to learn the hatter's trade, a business- 
which, in those days, bore a near relation to that of his father. After 
learning the trade, he engaged in the business in the city of New York. 



458 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1836, he closed out there and came West, visiting Milwaukee and 
other places in quest of a satisfactory- location. St. Louis suited him, 
and he at once began business and sent for his wife, who followed him 
the succeeding year. His place of business was on Main street, and he 
so conducted it as to win for himself the reputation of an honest and 
successful merchant. This was his occupation for twenty-five 3'ears, a 
period of time which brings us to the beginning of the war, when his 
services were demanded in another field. 

A most portentous cloud was hanging over the future of our Western 
metropoHs, when, early in May 1861, orders came to St. Louis, from 
Washington City, to muster in service forces for the defense of the 
Union. It was not many days before ten regiments had been mustered 
into service b}' the proper officer stationed at the Arsenal. McNeil 
was first elected captain of a company, and then, at the election for 
regimental officers which followed, was chosen Colonel of the Third 
Regiment of what was called the "United States Reserve Corps," con- 
sisting of men enlisted for three months service, and made up from the 
Third, Fourth and Fifth w^ards of the cit}'. McNeil was at once 
transformed into a soldier. With his command he moved into North 
Missouri to protect the railroad and to check the operations of General 
Harris, w^ho was crearing a diversion in favor of General Price. Of 
his operations then, perhaps the best idea ma}- be gathered from a 
letter of Colonel Chester Harding, at St. Louis, to General Lyon, then 
lying at Springfield. He says : "You can imagine my anxiety, and 
afterward nw relief, when I heard from that brave fellow, McNeil, that 
he had fought and had routed the rebels." 

During the summer of 1861, Colonel McNeil was Post Commandant 
and Provost-Marshal of St. Louis under Brigadier-General McKinstry. 
The business of dragooning a town was by no means congenial to him, 
he preferring rather the operations of the open field. He was soon after 
appointed Colonel of a cavahy regiment, and the next season, 1862. 
opened a vigorous campaign in Northern Missouri. This campaign 
terminated with the battle of Kirksville. His antagonist. General 
Porter, was a man of courage and energv, and fertile in resources. 
After his disaster he crossed the Missouri river w-ith a body-guard of a 
single man. 

In December 1862, McNeil was ordered into Southeastern Missouri 
to protect the State against invasion from the direction of Arkansas. 
The next spring General Marmaduke moved up from Little Rock with 
a formidable force of four briixades. estimated at about ten thousand 



GENERAL JOHN M NEIL. 459 

men. McNeil moved into Cape Girardeau with twelve hundred 
men and six guns. The garrison already there augmented his force by 
live hundred men and four guns. Marmaduke summoned the place to 
surrender, giving half an hour for consideration. McNeil replied 
promptly that he required no time for consideration ; that he should 
hold the place. A desperate tight followed, in which the garrison 
succeeded in resisting the assault made upon it, and Marmaduke with- 
drew. 

The next fall, Shelby came into Missouri. Passing rapidly through 
the northwest corner of Arkansas to the east of Fort Smith, he advanced 
through Western Missouri to the river at Boonville. General Brown 
encountered him at Arrow-Rock, when a desperate fight ensued, that 
lasted until they were enveloped in darkness. General McNeil was in 
St. Louis, having been detailed here as presiding officer of a court- 
martial. Setting out at once for his post at Lebanon, he gathered such 
force as he could, and advanced on Bolivar, where he hoped to inter- 
cept the retreat. Shelby was ahead of him, but he followed on, taking- 
prisoners, but not overtaking the main body, until at last, after reaching 
Arkansas, he gave up the pursuit and moved up the river to Fort Smith. 
This movement closed operations for the year 1863, and he was desig- 
nated to the command of the Army of the Frontier, vice General Blunt, 
relieved. 

The next season he reported to General Banks, and was assigned to 
the District of Lafourche. The district extended from New Orleans to 
Texas, and was menaced by that wily and dangerous foe, Dick Taylor. 
Early in August he returned to Missouri, and reported to General 
Rosecranz, who had taken command of the Department of Missouri. 
Coming up on the steamboat "Empress," she was tired into, and placed 
in a desperate position. The passengers who were military men 
assisted the officers of the boat in extricating her from her perilous 
position. Foremost among these was General McNeil. On his arrival. 
General Rosecranz complimented him highl}- in an order referring to it. 
but he declares the chief credit to have been due the pilot and engi- 
neer, and other officers of the boat. Soon after, he was appointed to 
the command of the District of Rolla, with headquarters at Rolla. 
From there he marched to Jefferson City, and saved the capital when 
endangered b}' the movements of Price. He afterward joined his force 
with that of General Brown, and participated in the series of actions 
and pursuit which ended in the destruction of General Price's army. 
After this campaign, the last of the serious lighting in Missouri, he was 



460 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

appointed to the command of Central Missouri, which he retained until 
his resignation, in April 1865. Immediately upon hearing of the sur- 
render of Generals Lee and Johnson, he was anxious to put off his uni- 
form and lay aside the occupation of the soldier. After the acceptance 
of his resignation, he was appointed Clerk of the Criminal Court, which 
office he held for twenty months. In 1866, he became a candidate for 
the sheriffalty of St. Louis, and was elected. In 1868, he was re-elected 
to the same position. At the expiration of his two terms, he retired to 
private life. In politics he has always been a Liberal Republican, and, 
as such, participated in the policy and led the movement which resulted 
in the election of Carl Schurz to the United States Senate. 

Consistent and able, always true to his own convictions, and those 
neither weak nor ill-dehned, General McNeil was, during the most 
exciting and dangerous time through which our State has ever passed, 
one of the most conspicuous figures in the formation and inforcement 
of a policy which, in the end, became dominant. A man of a high 
order of courage, prompt and persistent, hindered b}' no romantic sensi- 
bility nor love of popular applause, he displayed an aptitude and genius 
as a soldier, not usualh' found in men chosen from civil life. In the 
consideration of his character, we must add to the fitful period which 
now forms a part of his history, the patient years of his civil life. In 
the details of every-da}' affairs he was not impatient, and when, in the 
operations of war, he was confronted b}' dangers seen and unseen, he 
was undisturbed. 

In the social circle he is always genial and companionable. His 
neighbors, without distinction of party or creed, esteem him warmly : 
those who difier with him always honoring the convictions he entertains,, 
because of his honest, open and manh' avowal of them. Few men 
possess, in so rare a degree, the power of terse and forcible expression 
of a thought, and, though not an orator. General McNeil is always 
able to impress an audience favorably b}- means of short, pointed, solid, 
and earnest sentences. As he is firm in his convictions in all other 
things, so he is firm in his friendships ; no changes of fortune or cir- 
cumstances ever influence him to abandon a friend. Among those by 
whom he is most intimatelv known, he is esteemed as charitable, 
humane and kind, and few men are more highly blessed in the afiec- 
tionate and intellectual surroundings of his family relations. 

How little the world knows of the real character of the men who, in 
public life, perform acts which call forth the bitterness of an opposing 
party I McNeil is not an exception to the rule, and perhaps few men 



GENERAL J O " ^' m'nEIL. 461 

have been more persistent!}' abused by a class of our people than Gen- 
eral McNeil. No one can truthfully charge him with even entertaining 
a malicious feeling toward a human being in the world. When those 
he deemed his country's enemies were to be met, he believed in striking 
hard and et^ectually. Holding, with Sherman, that "war is cruelty and 
cannot be refined," he sought to inforce all its laws with rigor, and to 
conquer an early peace. 

If he was apparently severe while in command in North Missouri in 
1862, he was, in the light of the laws of war as recognized by civilized 
nations, and the orders under which he acted, really mild and humane. 
Under these laws and orders, guerrillas who had repeatedly violated their 
parole, and who had no right to be called "Confederate soldiers," were 
liable to be shot, and it was a dut}' incumbent on him to enforce the law 
and obey his orders. He acted by the orders of Generals Halleck, 
Curtis and Schotield. He knew the orders and acts of Napoleon's 
generals in Spain and Portugal, and their great antagonist, Wellington. 
He knew the orders of General Scott in Mexico, and of General 
Kearney in New Mexico, in reference to the treatment of guerrillas. ' 
He also knew the orders of General Kirby Smith, of the Confederate 
army, issued in Kentucky in 1861 ; and his conduct was in accordance 
with such laws, precedents and orders. The confirmation of all these 
precedents is found in the latest European war, in the treatment of the 
" Francs -Tireurs" in France by the Prussian army. That McNeil 
acted from conviction of duty is abundantly proven bv the consistenc}' 
of his course. He meted out the same treatment to guerrillas, without 
distinction as to what cause they pretended to espouse. When in 
command of the Army of the Frontier in the fall of 1863, he ordered 
the "mountain boomers," in Northern x\rkansas, to come in and be 
regularly enlisted in the United States service or lay down their arms, 
under penalty of being treated as outlaws and pursued to extermination. 
How that brave and enterprising Confederate soldier. General Shelby, 
treated this class of men, is related in "Shelb}^ and his Men." At 
Caddo Gap, Arkansas, he executed Captain McGinnis and thirtv-one 
men. 

When, in August 1862, McNeil sent in his resignation. General 
Schofield returned it indorsed : 

The services of Colonel McNeil are too valuable to the State and too highly appreciated 
at these headquarters to admit of the approval of his resignation at this time. It is, 
therefore, hoped that he will withdraw his resignation, at least until the peace of North- 
eastern Missouri shall be so far restored as to permit his retirement from the service with- 
out serious loss. 



462 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

But the people of Northeast Missouri did not know how he was 
esteemed at headquarters, and eight thousand of them signed a petition 
to President Lincoln, asking to have McNeil sustained in what he did. 
This they did after he had left Northeast Missouri and gone to the 
Southeast and to Arkansas. When he was notified that ten Colonels 
of the Union army were held as hostages at Richmond for his rendition 
to the Confederate Government to answer its charges of illegal warfare, 
he wrote President Lincoln that he desired a safe-conduct to Richmond 
in case his brother officers were not released, or were likely to sufier on 
his account. 

At the close of the war, General McNeil came forward among the 
first men to ofier, in the spirit of the brave man who would not harm a 
fallen foe, full and free pardon, reconciliation and restoration of rights 
to all who were willing to obey the constitution and laws of the country. 




WpslemEngrstviiigCompaici-of StJ^uis. 



COLONEL WILLIAM S. POPE. 



L\) MONG the younger men who are well known to the people of 
-i- A. St. Louis, and in the surrounding States, is the subject of this 
sketch. Colonel William S. Pope was born near Hopkinsville, 
Christian county, Kentuck}', April 25, 1827. He was the third son of 
a family of five boys. When a boy he enjoyed the advantages of 
obtaining a good education, and was a close and diligent student. He 
was graduated, with the chief honors of his class, at McKendree College, 
Illinois, in 1852. During the period of his attendance at college, he 
was two years tutor of mathematics in the institution — a mark of appre- 
ciation of his abilities conferred upon him by the faculty, without his 
solicitation. After his graduation, he was retained as an adjunct pro- 
fessor in the same department, and soon thereafter he was elected to 
take charge of a school at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. This position he 
declined. Subsequently he resigned his place in McKendree College to 
accept a professorship in one of the oldest shools in Northern Illinois. 
Here, during his spare time, he. prosecuted his legal studies, which he 
had previously commenced. After pursuing these diligently, he was 
admitted to the Bar, in Chicago, just before the commencement of the 
late war. 

While teaching, and pursuing his legal studies, in Northern Illinois, 
he acquired considerable repute as a lecturer and debater on scientific 
and political subjects, and during Mr. Lincoln's first campaign was 
proprietor and editor-in-chief of a paper published at Mt. Morris, Ogle 
county, Illinois. His lectures on varied subjects, delivered before 
schools, literary associations and public audiences, would form quite a 
large volume. 

In the midst of these pursuits, and when preparing to leave that field 
for the regular practice of his profession, he received a telegram from 
Governor Yates, of Illinois, to proceed at once to Springfield, and 
accompany the Governor to Pittsburg Landing, where he was to devote 
his attention to the interest of the Illinois volunteers. He at once 



^64 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

obeyed the call, leaving his books and his students to the care of 
others. Here he spent man}- weeks in the discharge of the laborious 
duties imposed upon him ; when, under authority of the Surgeon- 
General of that army, he took the steamboat Henry Clay to St. Louis, 
where he had her completely fitted out as a service boat for the sick 
and wounded Illinois troops, conveying many of these from the battle- 
field of Shiloh to the hospitals at St. Louis. Subsequently, he accom- 
panied Governor Yates to Washington, to aid him in settling the 
demands of the State of Illinois against the General Government for 
organizing and equipping volunteer troops. 

This having been accomplished, he was appointed paymaster in the 
army, to serve during the war. He was sent to St. Louis to report to 
Colonel Andrews, who was then in charge of the pay department at this 
place. It was while here that his duties called him to make payments 
at different times in various parts of the countr}', and the popularity he 
acquired during this service in the department is evidence of the very 
high commendations volunteered to him by his fellow-officers. A large 
number, if not all, of the officers in his department — men coming from 
many other States as well as from his own — united in saying of him, 
among other things, that, "Having served with him in the field for 
nearly three years, we regard him as second to none in devotion to his 
country's cause ; he is ceaseless in energy, spotless in integrity, schol- 
arly in attainments, and never-failing in those urbanities so essential in 
an American gentleman." 

Governor Yates, in speaking of Colonel Pope, in an official com- 
munication, said: ''I have known Major William S. Pope for many 
3^ears. He is a finished scholar of splendid abilities, an eloquent 
speaker, a high, honorable and honest man." 

But we need not quote from others. He was breveted Lieutenant- 
Colonel for efficient service in his department, and after the war, whilst 
in Washington settling his accounts. General Grant, before he was 
elected President, recommended and directed his appointment as pay- 
master in the regular army. After fully weighing the matter in his 
mind, he resolved to decline any further promotion, and decided to 
locate in St. Louis, and pursue his own way to honorable distinction 
in civil life. 

Having some lands in Illinois, he sold them at the high prices then 
ruling, and invested the proceeds in St. Louis property, which was then 
to be had at very low prices. By judicious investment, he acquired a 
valuable propert}' of his own in a few years. His accumulation of 



COLONEL WILLIAM S . POPE. 465 

wealth was by the wise investment of his means. At the time of his 
marriage, his own estate was valued at about $40,000, and this, by 
prudence, he has increased to a much larger sum. 

By close application to his profession, and to his own atiairs, Colonel 
Pope has acquired a high standing in the community. He has con- 
ducted some of the most difficult law cases, winning victory for his 
clients, and in cases which older lawyers declared could not be 
successfully prosecuted. But he was sustained both in the lower 
and the higher courts. 

Colonel Pope represented his district (the Fourth ward) in the twen- 
ty-sixth General Assembly of Missouri, and was at once recognized by 
his own political party, and by his opponents, as the leader of the Re- 
publicans in the House. He was never disconcerted in debate ; always 
clear in his propositions ; using no false logic, but depending on the 
virtue of his cause, and the sense of men to appreciate his representa- 
tion of it. 

Besides being a well-read lawyer, he is largely versed in the principles 
of general business, and has an eminently practical mind, which at 
once seizes the true ideas connected with questions of public interest. 

He was married December 20, 1866, to Miss Caroline E. Moore, 
daughter of the late Captain H. Y. Moore. His family consists of two 
little girls and a boy. His attachment to his family, and devotion to 
their interest, has led him to decline many calls to public stations. We 
trust he may live long to enjoy his prosperity and the many blessings 
that have been bestowed upon him, including the confidence of his 
fellow-citizens : and to aid in every good work commenced — especially 
in developing the best interests of St. Louis as the great metropolis of 
the West. 



:jo 



ARTHUR B. BARRET. 



CORTHUR BUCKNER barret, elected Mayor of St. Louis on 
.XjL the 6th day of April 1875, inaugurated on the 13th, and borne to 
his grave on the 27th of the same month at the early age of 
thirty-nine, had impressed his character upon his times, won a high 
place in the affections and confidence of his friends and of the public, 
and left behind him an honorable record. His ancestr}' was one that 
gave promise of the distinguished and unselfish services he was to per- 
form — a line of services upon which he had entered, and which were 
brought to an untimely close as he was reaching the full development of 
manly power. 

His father. Dr. Richard F. Barret, a native of Greenburg, Green 
County, Kentucky, after having graduated at Transylvania Universitv 
and completed the stud}- of medicine with the celebrated Dr. Drake of 
Cincinnati, father of Judge Charles D. Drake, removed to Illinois, then 
the El Dorado of the West, with the view of opening a large stock 
farm. He brought with him much fine stock from his native region, 
and forty famihes, and located just half way between Springfield and 
Jacksonville, in Sangamon County, Illinois. Upon this farm Arthur 
was born, on the 23d day of August 1836. His father soon, however, 
removed to Springfield, where he became Fund Commissioner of the 
State, director of the State Bank of Illinois, president of the Burling- 
ton, Iowa, and Warsaw, Illinois, Land Companies, and took a deep 
interest and active part in the internal improvements of the day. The 
most considerable of these were the Meredosia and Naples Railroad, 
and the La Salle Canal. He was an intimate and life-long friend of 
Abraham Lincoln, they having come from the same neighborhood in 
Kentucky. 

While Dr. Barret was pursuing his labors in Illinois, his old friend 
and classmate. Dr. J. N. McDowell, had founded a medical school 
in St. Louis, which then bore his name, but which is now known as 
the "Missouri Medical College." At the earnest solicitation of Dr. 
McDowell, Dr. Barret came to his assistance and occupied the chair of 
Professor of Materia Medica and Physiolog}^ This position he held 
until within a few vears of his death, which occurred in Mav i860. 



^68 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Aside from his professional labors, he was a partner in the firm of 
Wm. Nisbet & Co., bankers. As a practitioner, he was conscientious 
and intrepid. During the terrible cholera visitation of 1849, before the 
era of railroads, when every boat from the South came laden with sick 
and dying; when consternation had seized upon every class of citizens, 
and those who could, fled from a danger before which medical science 
was aghast ; when many doctors fell before the fearful disease, he stood 
at his post, organized the quarantine, and bore the most important part 
in establishing health regulations, which are the foundation of our pres- 
ent efficient Board of Health. His son. Dr. Wm. L. Barret, is now the 
chief officer of the Board. 

Arthur's maternal grandfather, Richard A. Buckner, was a judge of 
the Supreme Court of Kentucky ; a ripe scholar and eminent jurist, 
who, for many years, represented in Congress the district known as the 
Green River District. He was an intimate friend and co-worker with 
Henry Clay, and became a professor in the law school of the St. Louis 
University. His uncle, Aylett Buckner, represented his father's, the 
Green River District, in Congress contemporaneous with the service of 
Horace Greeley, Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln. He was 
a supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, and against the extension of sla^'er^•. 
Upon his removal to Missouri, he became a co-worker with Francis P. 
Blair and B. Gratz Brown, and in 1856 was one of the electors of Mis- 
souri on the Fremont ticket. Another uncle, Richard A. Buckner, of 
' Lexington, Kentucky, long presided as judge over the Fa3'ette District, 
at a time when Clay, Marshall, Allen and Letcher were stars in the 
legal galaxy of the bar. He was the law partner of John C. l^recken- 
ridee at the time of his death. 

William Barret, Arthur's paternal grandfather, was the son of an 
Episcopal clergyman, sent over to Virginia in the time of Queen Anne. 
In his youth he served as a captain in a Virginia regiment, in the Revo- 
lutionary war, and was married to Miss Doroth}- Winston, a first cousin 
of Patrick Henry. 

Arthur Buckner Barret had a long line of Revolutionary ancestors. 
The Barrets were early settlers at Barret's Ford, near Petersburg, 
Virginia ; the Buckners, of Buckner's Ford, below Fredericksburg, on 
the Rappahannock. Among their famih^ relations are some of the 
most noted and respected names of the Old Dominion. Related to the 
Barrets are the names of Lee, Fitzhugh, Winston, Payne and Overton, 
and to the Buckners the names of Madison, Thornton, x\ylett and 
Ta^■lor. 



ARTHUR B. BARRET. 469 

He received his earlier instruction from tutors in his father's house, 
at the home place, near Rock Spring. Among these may be numbered 
the late General Chester Hardinsf. He afterward attended the St. 
Louis University, and Phillip's Academy at Andover, Mass., giving 
evidence of unusually fine powers. 

As he reached manhood he exhibited a strong taste for out-door 
occupations, and his father being anxious for him to engage in stock- 
raising, gave him a farm on L' Outre Island, Montgomery county, 
Missouri, opposite Hermann. Here he entered upon the raising of fine 
stock, Morgan trotters, draught horses and blooded cattle. His hospi- 
table home was a favorite resort for his young friends from the city, 
whom he entertained with deer hunts, bird shooting and country sports 
generally, and in their honor he gave parties at which were assembled 
the grace and beauty of the surrounding country. 

He was married in June 1859 ^^ Miss Annie Farrar Swerengen, only 
daughter of Jas. T. Swerengen, one of St. Louis' oldest merchants, a 
lad}' of rare gifts and accomplishments. From their elegant city home 
they dispensed a generous hospitality, enlivened and elevated by those 
charms which native goodness and culture can lend. 

During the fierce excitement of the civil war, he was temperate in his 
speech and action, while all around him was tumult. He early signified 
his decision by taking the oath of fealt}' to the stars and stripes. This 
oath was among the first five filed with Colonel Bernard G. Farrar, 
Provost-Marshal of the State of Missouri. When peace succeeded to 
the strife, he applied himself with remarkable perseverance and ability 
to the task of revivifying and building up our decaying interests. The 
St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association had been organized 
in 1855. His cousin, J. Richard Barret, "Missouri Dick," was its 
president, and it was mainly to his exertions that it owed an existence. 
The war had cut short its promise of usefulness ; the soldiery had 
occupied the grounds, and everything was dilapidated. Added to all 
this was a disheartened directory and a distrust as to the future success 
of the association. At this conjuncture Arthur B. Barret came forward, 
was elected to the presidency, and the old directory, in the main, 
giving wa}' to younger men, the work of re-infusing life into a move- 
ment of such importance to this section, was begun. The task was 
one requiring unbounding zeal and patient application, combined with a 
rare discriminating judgment ; yet he carried it forward with a success 
that has come to be one of the most conspicuous of the kind in America. 
It stands, to-day, a monument of his popularity and executive ability. 
He remained president until 1874, when he resigned ; yet he retained a 



470 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

hearty interest in its affairs, co-operating with the directory, and serv- 
ing as first vice-president. 

When the rebuilding of the Lindell Hotel was agitated, and it became 
necessary to raise a bonus of $100,000 to stimulate the enterprise and 
secure the improvement, he took the matter in hand, and, by his indi- 
vidual exertions, secured a subscription for that amount. His money 
and services were also enlisted in behalf of Forest Park and of O'Fallon 
Park, and we are indebted to his taste and judgment for some of their 
most striking and useful features. On the occasion of the opening of 
the "Stengerfest," in 1872, he officiated as Grand Marshal of the day, 
and again, at the celebration attending the formal opening of the bridge 
on the Fourth of July, 1874, he acted in the same capacity, while the 
people of an entire city gave expression to their unbounded joy at the 
great achievement of the age. 

He had been several times a candidate before the Democratic 
Convention for nomination for the mayoralty, a position which he 
coveted. His first appearance as a candidate was in 1869 : the second 
in 1871, when he was defeated by three votes; and again, in 1873, 
when he was defeated by one vote. In 1875 he received a unanimous 
nomination without any opposition, and at the election, held on the 6th 
of April succeeding, was elected by a handsome majority. He had 
fullilled the duties of his new position but four days from his inaugura- 
tion on the 13th, when a serious illness confined him to his house, and 
terminated fatally on the 24th. The public was shocked at the intelli- 
gence of his death. He had alwa^^s been the picture of health and 
manly vigor, and the announcement was the cause of surprise as well 
as sorrow. His obsequies were attended with such marks of honor 
and such manifestations of woe as befitted the mourning of a city for 
a chief magistrate in w^hom centered so much of hope and so much of 
affection. 

He left behind him a wife and three children, to whom he was 
devotedl}' attached, and who were the objects of his tender solicitude. 

Arthur B. Barret was a conscientious, generous and able man. His 
heart was- kindly, his affections warm, his temperament sanguine, and 
his friendships sincere and lasting. In stature he was commanding, 
with hazel eyes, and a cordial manner. He was unswerving in his 
devotion to \yhatever he believed to be right, and persistent in his 
schemes for public welfare. In the fragment of life allotted to him, he 
exhibited rare promise, and had already earned honorable distinction. 
His labors were extended and unselfish, and his career an eminently 
worthy one. 



TRUMAN M. POST, D.D. 



iMONG the eminent divines who came to St. Louis at an early 
day, and who have outHved their own generation, is the distin- 
guished preacher whose name stands at the head of this sketch. 
•Truman Marcellus Post, D.D., is a native of Vermont, and 
was born at Middlebury, in that State, June 3, 1810. He was the 
youngest of three brothers. His father, Martin Post, was a promis- 
ing lawyer in that town — a man of decided ability — who died at a 
comparatively early age, and when the son, Truman, was yet a child. 
Truman's paternal grandfather, Rossel Post, was a Revolutionary 
patriot, and served with distinction and bravery, as a soldier, through- 
out that prolonged struggle. He w^as probably a descendant of some 
of the earlier settlers of the New England States — was born and raised 
among the Green Mountains, where he grew up to man's estate, full of 
that manl}' hardihood which well fitted him for the rugged toils of war. 
He was one of the brave men with Ethan Allen in the attack upon 
Ticonderoga, in the re-capture of that stronghold after its surrender : 
and he also was present at the battle of Bennington, August 6, 1777, 
and rendered other important service to his country at this critical 
period. 

His mother, Sarah Hulburt, came from the old Puritan stock, and 
was also born in Vermont. Truman received a good education, attend- 
ing in his earlier years the common schools of the day, near his home ; 
but his mother subsequently re-married, and he, on account of a dis- 
agreement with his step-father, left the paternal roof, and sought a 
home for a time amid the grand scenery of Lakes George and Cham- 
plain, spending much of his time near the mouth of Lake George, and 
directl}' opposite Ticonderoga. Unquestionably, the beauty and gran- 
deur of the scenery with which he was surrounded made a strong- 
impression on his mind, and had much to do in forming his early 
character. He remained here until he was tifteen years of age, when 
he returned to Middlebury. for the purpose of prosecuting his studies, 
and entered the college of that name in 1825. His means were limited, 
and during this time he incurred expenses which he was unable to meet 



472 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



until alter he was graduated. His course of study at college lasted 
four years, and he graduated with the honors of his class. 

Soon after leaving college he became principal of Castleton Academ}-, 
at Castleton, Vermont, where he remained two years : when he received 
and accepted a call from his Alma Mater to become a tutor, to give 
general instruction to the 3'ounger students. His services while princi- 
pal at the Academy at Castleton, and while acting as tutor in Middle- 
bury College, enabled him to acquire means amply sufficient to liquidate 
all the expenses he had incurred in obtaining his education. He 
remained here tor two years, but in the meantime devoted all his 
spare moments to the study of law, pursuing this study also while at 
Castleton. His original design was to educate himself for the ministry, 
but during the period of his tutorship at college some questions of dis- 
pute about theological matters arose, in which there was a disagree- 
ment between himself and the president of the college. Upon this he 
resigned his position, and almost immediately took his departure for 
Washington, D. C. During his tutorship he had studied law under 

the teachings of Starr, who was at that time a prominent law3^er at 

Middlebur}^ While at Washington, during the winter of i832-'33, he 
attended the sittings of the Supreme Court, and also studied the con- 
gressional debates. This was during the close of the administration of 
General Jackson, when Clay, Webster, Calhoun and Benton were in 
the Senate. 

In the spring of 1833 ^^^ ^^^^ Washington, and came over the 
mountains in the conveyances in use at that time, to Wheeling, Vir- 
ginia, where he took passage by boat for Cincinnati. Here he 
remained onh' a short time, but had the good fortune to meet the 
late Hon. Salmon P. Chase, who at that time was a young man just 
commencing the practice of law. Dr. Post remained here onh' two 
weeks. From this point he left for St. Louis, taking passage on a boat 
which was conveying General William Henry Harrison, in compan}' 
with his son, to St. Louis, where they and Dr. Post arrived in April 
1833. The western boundar}- of the city at that time was Fourth street. 
All beyond this was wilderness and prairie. 

Dr. Post, shortly after his arrival here, met Edward Bates, to whom 
he brought a letter of introduction, and by whom he was kindl\' 
received. He also met and became acquainted with Mr. Gamble and 
Mr. Geyer. His intention in coming to St. Louis was for the purpose of 
practicing law. Prior to settling down here, he made a trip to Jackson- 
ville, Illinois, to visit the Hon. Joseph Duncan, who was afterward 



TRUMAN M. POST, 



Governor of that State, and with whom he had become acquainted w^hile 
that gentleman was a member of Congress and residing in Washington. 
In order to reach Jacksonville at that time, he w^ent to St. Charles, and 
proceeded thence on foot to Grafton, and from that point, following a 
path through the almost unbroken wilderness, he reached Carrollton, 
having made the entire distance on foot. Here he took the stage and 
proceeded on his wav to Jacksonville. Among the passengers in the 
stage, was a little bo}- who subsequently became Chief Justice, for a 
number of years, of the Supreme Court of Illinois. At Jacksonville he 
met Mr. Duncan. He found there, and made the acquaintance of. 
General Hardin, who fell in the war with Mexico in 1845 ; Stephen A. 
Douglas was also there, at this time, engaged in teaching school : 
Colonel E. D. Baker, who fell mortally wounded at the battle of Ball's 
Blutf\ was also residing there, and was then a Campbellite preacher; 
Judge Lockwood was also a resident of that place. President Lincoln 
he occasionally met there. All of these gentlemen were then compara- 
tively young men, and all of them, in after years, became distinguished. 
During the time of his visit here, he received an urgent call from the 
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, who was then a professor in the Illinois College » 
at Jacksonville, to accept the chair of Professor of Ancient Languages^ 
and in connection therewith the chair of Ancient History, in that 
institution. The Rev. Edward Beecher was also a professor in the 
institution at that time, and both Dr. Sturtevant and Mr. Beecher were 
solicitous that Dr. Post should accept the place tendered him. After 
some consideration, he accepted the place. Prior to entering upon his 
duties in the college, he had been admitted to the Jacksonville Bar, but 
never entered upon the practice of his profession. He remained in 
Jacksonville for a period of fourteen years. During the first year of 
his residence there, the cholera made its appearance, and in company 
with two other young men they procured each a horse and made a 
journey to Chicago through the wilderness. At night they generally 
camped out, if they were unable to secure the shelter of some pioneer's 
cabin. Ottawa, Illinois, through which place they passed, only con- 
tained three houses at this time. Their object in visiting Chicago was 
to attend the treaty made about this time with the Indians, and to see 
for themselves something of savage life. There w^ere about seven 
thousand Indians present at Chicago on this occasion, including five 
hundred warriors. The celebrated chief Black Hawk was there. The 
sight of so many Indians was a novel one, at least, and w^ell repaid 



474 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Dr. Post and his companions for the journey through a country then so 
sparsely inhabited. 

Returning to Jacksonville, he resumed his duties in the college, and 
among the first lads he taught was the late lamented Richard Yates, 
who was the war Governor of Illinois, and a man of brilliant attain- 
ments as a statesman and an orator. During this time two important 
events occurred. In 1835, he re-visited his native State, and, during 
that year, was united in marriage to Miss Frances A. Henshaw, of 
Middleport, Vermont, whose ancestors came early to this country-, a 
portion under the Protectorate, in 1653, and another portion in 1620, in 
the Mayflower. Returning to Jacksonville, he resumed his duties in 
college ; and in 1840 entered the ministr}^ and was appointed to take 
the pastoral charge of the Congregational church in that place, where 
he remained until 1847. In this year, he received an urgent call to 
return to St. Louis and assume the pastoral charge of the Third Pres- 
byterian church, which call, after due consideration, he accepted, and 
remained its pastor for a period of four years, when, in i85i-'52, it 
adopted the Congregational form of government. Over this church he 
has ever since presided. His hesitancy about accepting the call when 
flrst made, was on the grounds of the existence of slavery in this State, 
and his aversion to place himself in any position in life where his 
opinions on any question, especially on this, which he regarded as one 
of the great evils of the day, would be trammelled. He signified to the 
church trustees that he accepted their call, provided that he could come 
as a free man ; that he was opposed to the institution of slavery, and 
that he could not be bought, nor were his views likely to undergo any 
alteration because of a change of residence to a slave State. Since 
then, Missouri has emerged from the long shadow, and Dr. Post has 
lived to see Missouri free, and slavery in all her borders forever 
abolished. 

The talents of Dr. Post are of a very hig-h order. He is enii^aging in 
his manner, earnest in the delivery of his sermons, and his eloquent 
language flows with that grace and polish so significant of profound 
scholarship. 




Sam'i, Gatx. 



SAMUEL GATY. 



/ I \HE manufacture of iron in St. Louis has attained an importance 
JL already greater than many ever dreamed it would reach, and 
yields a handsome revenue to those whose money is invested in 
it : thousands of others, employed in the various mills, foundries and 
machine shops, deriye from this source a support for themselyes and 
families. The vast iron banks and mountains of Missouri, however, 
are capable of furnishing ore for an increase manifold of the amount 
of business now done, and, without doubt, the number of manufac- 
turing establishments will be multiplied to suit the coming demand. 

To trace the humble beginning of this important branch of industry, 
is the object of relating something of the history of Samuel Gaty, who 
made the first castings and built the first engine on the west side of the 
Mississippi River. Inheriting the commanding stature, robust consti- 
tution and unwavering purpose which so strongly marked the pioneers 
who settled the West, he entered a field where everything, from the 
tools that made machinery to the machinery itself, was to be created. 
Rivers and forests were to be Subjugated, and engines constructed to 
grind the grain required for food. The problem was, how to perform 
the greatest amount of work and attain the highest results with the 
materials at command. The question was not how to do it most grace- 
fully, but how to do it at all. Refinement of invention was not in 
demand ; but invention that should convert the rich natural resources 
around us into immediate sources of power, was invaluable. To 
Samuel Gaty the business owes its inception, its growth and its 
present position. He is the embodiment of that physical and mental 
type of men who led the way in the westward crusade of civilization, 
and the evidences of his powers and his labors are interwoven with the 
growth and institutions of St. Louis. 

Mr. Gaty was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on the loth of 
August iSii. His ancestors w^ere of German origin, and settled in 
Pennsylvania at an early period of the country's history, founding the 
town of Gettysburg. His grandfather married into the Markel famih'. 
John Getty, the father of the subject of this sketch, married E^•a 



476 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Henderlider, and commenced life in the young State of Kentucky. 
The mother died when Samuel was onh' three years and a half old, and 
a few years later — when he was between seven and eia;ht years of asfe — 
his father died, leaving him alone in the world, to the care of strangers. 
The reader will have observed that the family name was Getty. This 
was the way the father spelled it ; but when Samuel went to school, his 
teacher wrote it Gaty., and he was not made acquainted with the fact 
tliat it had been spelled differenth' until some years after he had engaged 
in business for himself in St. Louis-. The six months' instruction he 
received from this teacher who changed his name, was all the school- 
ing he ever had. After his father's death, he was apprenticed to a man 
who seems to have cared but little for his future welfare, and atfbrded 
him no means of instruction. At that early day in Kentucky, there 
were no public schools, and unless parents and guardians sent their 
children to paid schools, they were obliged to go without education. 
Now and then, on Saturda3'S, Samuel picked up bits of information 
from his companions ; and whenever he had the privilege of attending 
service on the Sabbath, he remembered some things that were taught; 
but his bo3'hood, at this time, w^as a very unhappy one, and he thought 
he could fare no worse by running away. So, one day when all the 
white members of the family had gone on a visit, he concluded that it 
was time for him to go too. He traveled a few miles to a neighbor's 
house, and got a small gun which his father had left him as his only 
legacy ; then, taking another road, he -walked, with his gun on his 
shoulder, to Louisville. It was a bold undertaking- for a lad not eleven 
years of age, but he had a stout heart and a strong, healthy body to 
aid him. 

On his arrival at Louisville, he apprenticed himself to Messrs. Pren- 
tice & Beckwell, who carried on the machinery and foundry business. 
Three years later, Mr. Prentice died, and was succeeded in business 
by Mr. Wm. Ketf'er, to whom young Gaty apprenticed himself for an 
additional period of two years. The amount stipulated to be paid him 
was three dollars and a half per week and one hundred and fifty dollars 
at the end of his apprenticeship. During this term of two years he was 
enabled to earn one hundred dollars additional, by making a special 
kind of work, after the regular day's work was over. With the 
money thus obtained, he started, after completing his apprenticeship, 
for New Albany, Indiana, where he worked a few months for John 
Morton, sen. 

One day in October 1828, some of the young men of the foundry 



SAMUEL GATV. 477 

were talking with each other of their various phins for the future, when 
the town of St. Louis was mentioned as a good place for business. 
Gaty, John Morton, jr., and a young man named Richards, concluded 
to go to St. Louis and see what sort of a place it was. They came in 
the latter part of October, and Morton, Gaty and Richards started a 
small shop. At the end of three months, they sold their business to 
Colonel Martin Thomas. The establishment was situated near the 
northeast corner of Second and Cherry streets. For a short time the 
business was conducted by Richards and Thomas, and then Thomas 
closed the concern up. 

Not long after this, a Mr. Peter McQueen, of New York State, leased 
the establishment, and went home to make arrangements for commenc- 
ing the business. Young Gaty and Morton were out of employment, 
but waited for McQueen's return. When he came, Mr. Newell. 
Mr. Gaty's friend, called on him, and stated that there were two very 
excellent mechanics waiting to be employed by him. McQueen replied 
that he did not think he could emplo}' them, as he would bring all his 
men, who were skilled laborers, from the East: — quite a blow to the 
young men's prospects, but they resolved to wait the turn of events. 

In the meantime the steamer Jubilee had broken a shaft, and the 
Captain went to Mr. McQueen's foundry to get one cast. The pro- 
prietor said he could make the patterns and mould one, but his men 
could not melt the iron in an air-furnace, having been accustomed to a 
cupola. Mr. Gaty's friend, Newell, overheard the conversation, and 
told McQueen that Sam Gaty could melt the iron for him. McQueen 
then went to Gaty and asked him if he could melt the iron. He replied 
that he could. "What will you charge?" said the former. "One-half 
the whole price," said Gaty. McQueen said that was too much. "x\ll 
right," said Gatv, "get your skilled workmen from the East to do it." 
McQueen finally concluded to pa}' the price, and Gaty melted the iron 
in a few hours, getting a very good casting ; but after it was cast, there 
was not a geared lathe, or an automatic one, in the city. While 
McQueen and the Captain of the Jubilee were discussing the question 
of whether or not they should send to Louisville to have the shaft 
turned, Mr. Newell overheard them, and told them that Gaty could 
do that job too. McQueen came to Gat\' and asked him if he could 
do it. He said he could. "But how?" said McQueen. "That is my 
business," said Gaty, "but I can do it."* 

* This incident is related simply to show under what difficulties the iron foundry busi- 
ness was conducted at that early day, and what progress has since been made. 



478 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

He was employed to do the job at a liberal price, and this is the wa\' 
he did it : He found two cog wheels, and bolted the larger one on the 
face plate of the lathe, and the smaller one on a counter-shaft, sup- 
ported by a wooden structure. By this means he had the necessary 
power to turn it within a day and a half. 

After this exhibition of his skill and practical sense, Mr. McQueen 
was quite desirous to employ him, but he refused. He worked for 
Mr. Newell, however, for a short time, in his blacksmith shop, at $1.25 
per day, and in the latter part of the year 1829 returned to Louisville, 
and worked a while as a journeyman. 

In September 1830, Mr. Newell wrote him that Mr. McQueen was 
unsuccessful in making castings, and if he would come back, he 
(Newell) would assist him in erecting a foundry. He came in Novem- 
ber, and got the foundation laid for the building. In the spring he 
made the fire brick for his furnace, built the furnace, and took the first 
heat on the Fourth of July 1831. The castings were for Captain John 
C. Swan, of the steamer Carrollton, and were of excellent quality. 
This furnace worked well, and was used afterward for over twenty 
years. 

In August 1 83 1, the firm of Scott & Rule, merchants and steamboat 
owners, failed in their enterprise. Upon an investigation of their affairs, 
the fact was made known that they were the real owners of the foundry 
and machinery establishment which Mr. Gaty had been conducting for 
Mr. Newell. He was astonished at the information, and for a time 
somewhat discouraged. In the settlement, the whole business was 
turned over to James Wood, of Pittsburg, in payment of a debt, but 
Mr. Rule came to Mr. Gaty, and said if he would buy it out, he 
thought he could arrange business in a short time so as to go in with 
him and take charge of the books and finances of the concern, x^fter 
considering the matter for a few hours, he concluded to buy it. This 
he did by giving his notes, payable in one, two and three years, the 
parties of whom he purchased giving him credit for the money he had 
already expended. The first note fell due in September 1832, while the 
cholera was raging in the cit}^ at a fearful rate. He had done work 
for a certain gentleman to an amount sufficient to meet the note, and 
expected him to pa}' him in ample time, but this part}^ went away 
through fear of the cholera, and the holder of the note had deposited 
it in the United States Branch Bank and agreed to waive protest, which 
he probably forgot to do. It was protested the next da}^ after maturit}' 
for non-payment. A few days afterward the person owing him returned. 



SAMUEL GATY. 479 

procured the money, paid Mr. Gatv, and he paid the note. This was 
the first and last note of Samuel Gat3'''s that ever went to protest for 
want of means. x\t this time there was but a small demand for cast- 
ings, the average being not more than two or three tons per week. The 
demand gradual!}' increased up to 1834, '^"^ ^" 1835 ^^'- Gaty's foundry 
business was self-sustaining. 

During these early years of his business career, and while he was 
struggling to gain a firm foothold, he received valuable financial aid 
from Daniel D. Page, Esq., Mr. George K. McGunnigle and Mr. John 
Riggin. Mr. Page was especially obliging and friendly, and after he 
had formed a more intimate acquaintance with Mr. Gaty, did all he 
could to aid him in building up a permanent and lucrative business. 
Mr. Gaty frequently mentions with gratitude these friends of his early 
years. 

In the course of time Mr. Felix Coonce became a partner, and the 
firm name was Gaty & Coonce. Subsequently, it was changed to 
Gaty, Coonce & Morton ; Gaty, Coonce & Beltzhoover ; Gaty, Coonce 
& Glasbv, and Gaty, McCune & Glasby. In 1840, the business began 
to assume important proportions. The amount of work w^as large, and 
the needs and resources of the countr}' increasing rapidly. In 1849, 
Gerard B. Allen was admitted a member of the firm, and the name was 
changed to Gaty, McCune & Co. Subsequently, James Collins, 
William H. Stone and Amos Howe were admitted co-partners, and 
the firm continued until July 1862, when it was dissolved, Gaty & 
McCune retiring from the foundrv business, and being succeeded by 
the junior partners under the firm name of Stone & Howe. 

Mr. Gaty has lived to see his expectations realized — that the little 
French village on the west bank of the Mississippi would, during his 
lifetime, assume the dimensions of the largest inland city in the United 
States, and second to no one of them in the character and capacity of 
its manufactures ; that in place of his air furnace of one ton capacity per 
day, hundreds of furnaces and cupolas would be operated, making 
thousands of tons of iron per day. 

He is, as we have shown, the pioneer of the foundry and machine 
business in the city of St. Louis, and can look back with pride and 
satisfaction on what he accomplished in building up this important 
industry. 

Mr. Gaty was married to Miss Eliza J. Burbridge in 1843, and is the 
father of thirteen children. 



480 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mr. Gaty has tilled various important positions in the city. He was 
.alderman for several years, and assisted in framing and passing the 
ordinances by which many public institutions were established, streets 
laid out, and improvements made for the benefit of the young city of 
St. Louis. He has, however, declined many places of honor and 
emolument, preferring to follow as closely as possible the business 
which he established, and for which he was best fitted. 

He has had the management of several enterprises which required 
sound judgment, executive ability and patient labor. As president, 
director and manager of these various institutions, he has acted with 
more regard to the rights of others than for his own immediate benefit. 
He has also contributed largely of his means for the development of 
enterprises beyond the immediate vicinity' of St. Louis. 

With a competent income, and having his business enterprises in such 
a condition that they can be controlled with comparative ease, Mr. Gatv 
spends his declining years in quiet comfort, and in administering to 
others less favored by fortune than himself. He enjoys the confidence 
and respect of the community which he has done so much to build up 
and make prosperous. 



GENERAL T. J. BARTHOLOW. 



THOMAS JEREMIAH BARTHOLOW was born in Cooksville, 
Howard county, Maryland, January 31, 1826. His ancestors can 
be traced back through a period of many years — those on the 
paternal side having come originally from Alsace and Lorraine, and 
settled in Virginia as early as the year 1680. His father was Singleton 
Nelson Bartholow, a well-to-do merchant of his day, who died w^hen 
his son, the subject of this sketch, w^as a boy of eleven years. The 
maiden name of his mother was Mary Bissett Hood. She was of En- 
glish descent, — the ancestors of her mother, who was a Hobbs, having 
come to Maryland about thirty 3^ears after Lord Baltimore brought over 
his colony. His ancestors on both sides were Protestants. His paternal 
grandmother was a Miss Nelson, prior to her marriage, and a niece 
of Governor Nelson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

General Bartholow, from his boyhood up, has led a stirring and 
eventful life. His early educational advantages were limited, and he 
is, in nearh' the full acceptation of the term, ^'a self-made man." The 
early death of his father cut off advantages in the w^ay of an education 
that he might otherwise have enjoyed ; for, upon that event taking 
place, the son became an apprentice to a merchant in Baltimore, where 
he remained for a few years, working diligently, and saving his small 
earnings. Prior to his apprenticeship, he had attended a country school 
in the vicinitv of his home, where he had acquired nothing more than 
the rudiments of an English education. Desirous of bettering himself 
in this respect, he subsequently attended a school at Frederick, Mar}'- 
land, for one vear, where he applied himself closely to his studies, pay- 
ing his own expenses out of mone}' he had saved for the purpose. At 
the end of this time he returned to Baltimore, resumed his occupation 
in the store he had left, where he remained until he was eighteen 3'ears 
of age. 

Ardent in his disposition, and naturallv ambitious in his temperament, 
he bethought him of a wider field, where more abundant opportunities 



_j.82 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of advancement would present themselves, and with this view he came 
west, settling in Fayette, Howard county, Missouri, in 1844. Here he 
obtained a situation as clerk in a store. After remaining as clerk for 
little more than a year, he was admitted into the partnership, which 
resulted disastrously. The partnership had been formed under repre- 
sentations by his partner that he would furnish a certain amount of 
money to carry on the business ; but this he was unable to do, and the 
enterprise failed, throwing the burthen of a debt of thirty-three hun- 
dred dollars on young Bartholow. In 1846, the news which reached 
our people that war actually existed between the United States and 
Mexico, created the wildest excitement, not onl}- in this city, but 
throughout the entire West, and particularly in the interior of this State, 
minified,^ at one time, with the fjreatest solicitude when it was rumored 
that General Taylor, with his handful of troops, was surrounded by an 
overwhelming force of the enemy. Being out of emplo3anent at this 
time, and the war oflering an attractive field of adventure, he enlisted in 
Colonel Doniphan's regiment as a private soldier, borrowing the money 
to pay for his horse and equipments. The movements of that regiment, 
the daring displayed by the men who composed it, and their remarkable 
achievements, are a part of the wildest and most thrilling portions of 
Western history. This regiment belonged to the celebrated division of 
the army under General Kearney. It marched from Leavenworth to 
Santa Fe, where the operations of this part of the army gave us mili- 
tary possession of one-sixth of the territory afterwards ceded to the 
United States b}^ Mexico. 

They then marched against the Navajo Indians, in mid-winter, and 
forced them to make a treaty of peace and surrender several hundred 
thousand dollars' worth of property, consisting of horses, mules, cattle 
and sheep, to the Mexicans. They then moved southward into the 
Mexican territory, through the Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of the 
Dead, a desert of ninety miles without water, and fought the battle of 
Brazito, defeating the Mexicans, and gaining possession of the city of 
El Paso del Norte. After remaining in the city for a time, to rest and 
collect new supplies, they again set out on their southward march 
against the city of Chihuahua, distant four hundred miles. On arriving 
in front of the city, they found that preparations had been made to 
receive them, and then followed one of the most remarkable and bril- 
liant of those engagements in which resistless enthusiasm and valor 
were overmatched in numbers and position by a foe inferior in the 
elements of manhood. The Mexicans had collected an armv of four 



(JEN. T. J. BARTHOI>OW. 483 

thousand one hundred and twenty men and ten pieces of artillen" 
behind a Hne of earth works a mile in extent. The American force 
consisted of nine hundred and twenty-four men. The Americans con- 
fidently advanced to the attack, and, after six hours' fighting, defeated 
the Mexicans, who lost three hundred men in killed and wounded. 
The victors captured live hundred Mexicans, all their artillery, and 
their baggage and ammunition trains. The next day they entered the 
city of Chihuahua without resistance, and held undisputed possession 
for two months. They were then ordered by General Taylor to form 
junction with the armv at Monterey, after which, at the expiration ot" 
their term ot' service, they were sent to New Orleans to be mustered 
out. 

After being mustered out, Mr. Bartholow came to St. Louis, in 1847, 
and engaged as book-keeper in the house of Woods, Christy & Co. In 
1848 he went to Glasgow, Howard county, where he engaged in general 
merchandising, and the manufacture of tobacco, with unusual financial 
success up to 1862. During this year an incendiary fire destroyed his 
factories, by which he sustained a loss, amounting to fully fifty thousand 
dollars. In the meantime our civil war had broken out, and Governor 
Gamble having appointed him a Colonel, he raised a regiment in How- 
ard and Randolph counties, of which he took command. His service 
in the Mexican war was of great benefit to him at this time. Subse- 
quently he was promoted to be a Brigadier-General, and assigned 
to command of the Eighth military district, e mbracing twenty-five coun- 
ties in the north-eastern part of the State, with headquarters at Macon 
City. The principal dut}' of the command was the protection of the 
North Missouri and Hannibal & St. Joe Railroads, and no disturbances 
occurred, or serious destruction of property was accomplished bv the 
Confederates, until Price's raid in 1864. 

After the war, the General, in connection with a company organized 
in New York, purchased in the State of Durango, in Mexico, a number 
of valuable silver mines. He was appointed the superintendent ; went 
to Durango, opened the mines ; had a ten-stamp quartz mill built in San 
Francisco ; shipped it to Mazatlan ; from thence it was packed in pieces 
on mules over the mountains, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, 
where it was set up ; in the meantime working one hundred miners in 
the mines, who took out and delivered at the mill, by the time it was 
completed, several thousand tons of rich and valuable ore. Before an^' 
considerable portion had been worked, however, the company was 
driven away by the Mexicans, who took possession of the propertv. 



_j.S4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

after the company had expended hve hundred and thirty-five thousand 
dollars in mining and machinery, and have ever since refused to restore 
it. The company is now prosecuting a claim before the Mexican and 
American joint commission, sitting in Washington, for the recovery of 
damages from the Republic of Mexico for this outrage. 

Following this. General Bartholow returned to St. Louis in 1866, and 
organized the well-known banking house of Bartholow, Lewis & Co.. 
over the affairs of which he now presides, and which, since its organi- 
zation, has proved one of the safest and best banking institutions in the 
city. 

Having lost his wife in 1862, General Bartholow determined upon 
educating his children in Europe, and, for this purpose, accompanied 
them there in 1868. He has since made several trips for pleasure 
across the waters, and for the purpose of watching their course of 
instiniction. 

General Bartholow is still in the prime of a vigorous manhood ; of a 
genial disposition : kindly in his sympathies : easily approached, and 
has won the confidence and esteem of all who know him. His financial 
abilities are of a high order, and he is a liberal promoter of enterprises 
the benefits of which are shared by the public. 




^^^^=^ i^C C/7 



JAMES PRESTON BECK, 



)t\HE object of this work is not to eulogize individuals, but to 
1 illustrate the greatness of our country, and the merits of our 
institutions and laws, by living examples of their effects in the 
development of men and character. If a tree should be judged by its 
fruits, it is but fair that a government should be judged by the men it 
produces. In selecting these men we ha\'e endeavored to avoid the 
arena of politics, where prominence is due, not so much to the wisdom 
and virtue of the individual, as to the warring of factions and the 
passions of the hour. Few men so favorably and fairl}^ illustrate the 
influence of republican institutions on the development of men and 
character as the subject of this sketch. James Preston Beck. Born 
in poverty, without friends or influence, he is a living example that, in 
this country, success depends not so much upon factitious surroundings 
as upon the individual. 

Mr. Beck was born in the State of Indiana. While yet an infant, his 
parents removed to the State of Missouri. His father, Louis Beck, 
belonged to a family of eminent merchants. On his mother's side, he 
is descended from one of the most distinguished famihes in Scotland. 
His maternal grandfather emigrated to this country at an early day, and 
served under General Washington. 

At the tender age of four vears, death took both father and mother, 
leaving voung Beck a friendless orphan. Collecting the trifle of prop- 
erty- remaining at the death of his parents, his guardian put him to 
school at a college in the interior of the State, where he displayed such 
aptness as to finish the course at the early age of thirteen. Deeming 
him too young to begin a profession, he was entered at the Masonic 
College at Lexington, Missouri. The completion of the course there 
still found him verv voun<r. It was deemed best to defer professional 
studies to a later date. He was accordingly sent to Yale College, where 
he graduated at the age of eighteen, having, like John C. Calhoun, 
accomplished the remarkable feat of completing the four years" course 
in three years. Much against his own inclination, he yielded to the 
solicitations of his guardian, and studied medicine, and is frequently 



486 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

spoken of as Dr. Beck, Instead of practicing, he devoted himself to 
the task of compiHng a work entitled "The Doctor and Lawyer," now 
in press, illustrating the intimate connection between the professions of 
law and medicine. The moral of the work seems to be that a great 
criminal lawyer must necessarih' be a learned and skillful physician. 
This work will go far toward abolishing capital punishment, at which it 
is aimed, as it shows that the greatest punishment is generall}' visited on 
those deserving only pity and an asylum. 

For the practice of medicine, however, Mr. Beck conceived a dislike 
which could never be overcome, and early abandoned the profession ; 
entering immediately upon the practice of law, for which he had pre- 
viously qualified himself by years of close application. He rapidly rose 
in his profession until he has become widely known as one of the most 
successful managers of causes known to the profession. So extended 
has become his practice, that it is not unusual for him to close a case in 
Washington City and start at once to look after a case in San Diego, 
California. Reserved, silent, unobtrusive, always insisting on his own 
ignorance, forever seeking the advice of everybody on every subject, 
he owes his prominence chiefl}^ to his enemies, who insist that he is the 
most subtle and dangerous antagonist at the Bar. It is said of Webster 
that he crushed opposition as with a sledge ; with Wendell Phillips it is 
the light play and rapid thrust of the rapier, but Beck's logic may be 
compared to the deadly stiletto. In an unguarded moment, confident 
of victor}', his triumphant antagonist relaxes for a moment his vigilance, 
instantly the merciless weapon flashes to its deadly aims, and opposition 
is stilled forever. His friends are both numerous and powerful. Strange 
to say, among his staunchest supporters are numbered man}- who were 
formerh" bitter and unrelenting foes. With a judgment seemingly as 
unerring as fate, he combines an independence that repels. His exact- 
ness about paying debts and fulfilling contracts amounts to an excen- 
tricity. He is generous and hospitable, and with the polished manners of 
a Frenchman, he combines the tenacit}- of purpose characteristic of his 
Scotch ancestry. But have we not said enough of a man who is yet 
young, and who has studiously avoided both notoriety and politics : 
for such is his contempt for the latter, that he never cast a vote in 
his life. 

If our purpose was the eulogy of individuals, we would certainly say 
no more. But the object of this work compels us to make still farther 
use of this man, and to record that while accomplishing all this, he was 
a devotee of science, and in the prosecution of his studies of geologv. 



JAMES P. BECK. 487 

mineralogy and natural history, he found time to cross the western 
plains thirty-four times, before the days of railroads. His camp fires 
frightened awa}- the wolf from what are now the sites of Omaha and 
Denver, and the mysterious country of San Juan echoed to the sound 
of his rifle long before silver and gold was even suspected in that 
countrv. In that vast territory on the northern border of Texas, marked 
on the map as an unknown region, over which roam herds of wild 
horses and buflalo, Mr. Beck delighted to pitch his tent. From his 
description of this country, it must indeed be the garden spot of 
America. He explored it in mid-winter, and found the atmosphere 
fragrant with flowers, and resonant with the music of honey-bees. The 
richest part of the American continent, says Mr. Beck, enthusiastically, 
has not yet been touched. 

The world's measure of a man, is his success. If we apply this cri- 
terion to him, we behold a financier of no insignificant ability. Touch 
what he will, it seems to prosper. Whatever the future may have in 
store for him, he has, to date, proven a brilliant financial success. 

But, while engrossed with these manifold pursuits, he still found time 
for practical agriculture, and he is to-day one of the largest landed pro- 
prietors on the continent. We learn from a former count}' surveyor of 
Howard county, Missouri, that his country-seat there is one of the 
largest estates in the county. Our informant adds that it is unquestion- 
ably the finest farm in the county, and one of the most successfull}- 
managed. But when we add that this is but one of many, and that one 
of his ranches contains three hundred thousand acres, some idea ma}- 
be formed of the magnitude of his undertakings. 

We recently addressed a note to Mr, Beck, requesting some facts 
relative to his historv. His reply was characteristic of the man, and we 
^ive it in full : 

Hon. L. U. Rcavis: 

Dear Sir : — The Declaration of Independence grants us all life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness. My idea of happiness, in fact of Paradise, is the total absence of notoriety. 
If you can find other characters to illustrate your work, kindly leave me to the obscurity 
I really covet. 

July i, 1S75. JAS. P BECK. 

We are sorry that we cannot accommodate Mr. Beck. All men 
make a character, in spite of themselves, and this character is in part 
the property of the country whose institutions have been instrumental in 
forming it. While his refusal to furnish data, deprives us of a history, 
which in itself is a romance, we have learned, from other sources. 



^.88 BIOGRAPHICAL S K 1^ T C II K S . 

enough to show, — that no other ii'overnment on the globe presents so 
wide and varied a field for the development of the humblest citizen, 
as our own free and glorious Republic, where, as in this case, there is 
oftentimes found, in an humble tiller of the soil, a finished scholar, 
a polished gentleman, a practical financier, a consummate lawyer, and a 
devotee of science. 




ttr(H|f>niKiigivt\TiisCoiiitiai[>-uf SlIxjiJis. 




COLONEL A. W. SLAYBACK. 



CONSPICUOUS among the men who. b}- their talents and accom- 
phshments, grace a Bar long renowned for its intellectual giants, 
is the subject of the present sketch, Colonel Ai.onzo William 
Slayback. He was born July 4, 1838, at Plum Grove, Marion count}^ 
Missouri, the homestead of his maternal grandfather, J. A. Minter. 
His father, Alexander L. Slayback, was a lawyer of eminent ability, 
and his mother a woman of great strength of character, adorned with all 
the virtues and p'races of the highest order of cultured, christian 
womanhood. His grandfather was Dr. x\bel Slayback, of Cincinnati, 
one of the most distinguished physicians of his day. 

The earlv education of young x\lonzo was conducted almost entireh' 
by his mother, and to her teachings and example he is doubtless 
indebted for much of that sterling spirit of self-reliant independence 
and that high sense of honor which have so strongly characterized his 
career. At ten years of age, having completed his preparatory studies, 
he was sent to the Masonic College at Lexington, where, after a course 
of eight years in the different branches of a collegiate education, he 
gi^aduated in 1856, carrying off the first honors in a class of seven. His 
ambition from boyhood having been to become a law3'er, his studies, 
during the last four years of his college life, were directed mainly to 
that end. At the termination of his course, he taught school and 
studied law alternatelv — an experience which is noticeable in the earlv 
struggles of many of the most noted lawvers of the West. In Septem- 
ber 1857, he was admitted to practice at St. Joseph, Missouri, where he 
successful!}' followed his profession until 1861. 

The great civil war was upon the land. Born and reared on Southern 
soil, surrounded from childhood with Southern institutions, and imbued 
with a deep, impassion-ed love for his native section, he promptly 
decided upon the course he should pursue. Espousing the cause of 
State Rights, as interpreted by the Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, he 
raised a regiment of cavahy, was elected its Colonel, and joined the 
command of General Price, at Lexington, in June 1861. At the expira- 



490 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

tion of their term of service, he enHsted in the Confederate service, and 
had partiall}' recruited another regiment, when the transfer of General 
Price's troops to Tennessee temporarily put an end to these operations 
in the West. At the batde of Elkhorn, however, he was assigned the 
command of a regiment hasdly gotten up for the occasion, partly of 
State and partly of Confederate troops, and they did splendid service. 
Soon afterward, transferred to the east side of the Mississippi, he was 
promoted for meritorious conduct at Corinth and Farmington. Acting 
under orders of the Secretary of War, Colonel Slayback re-crossed the 
Mississippi, and reported to General Hindman, who assigned him to 
duty with the cavalr}' at the front. After many months' patient effort, 
and man}- stirring adventures, he succeeded in raising another regiment 
of cavahy, which was attached to Shelby's old brigade, and in this 
command he served until the close of the war. 

Few men of his age left the battle-scarred ranks of the fallen Con- 
federacy with a brighter record for bravery and promptness upon the 
field. His comrades on many a hard-fought plain, in many a fiery fray, 
gray, grisly, war-worn veterans, all unite in declaring that no man was 
oftener found in the batde' s red front, where the shot flew thickest and 
the struggle was fiercest, than Colonel Slayback. During his term of 
service, he took part in more than forty batdes and skirmishes, and only 
sheathed his sword when he saw that hope was at an end. At the close 
of the eventful stmggle, feeling that all he had loved and fought for 
was lost, and that no country remained for him except at an enemy's 
will, he resolved to seek a home in some foreign land. With forty-eight 
of his old regiment, who elected him as their captain, he joined 
Shelby's expedition to Mexico, and for a year wandered up and down 
in that distracted country, sharing the vicissitudes, misfortunes and 
romantic adventures of that resolute band, in search of emplovment fit 
for soldiers. 

But his mother still lived, and with a mother's love yearned for her 
gallant boy. With a heroism that could only come of mother-love, she 
resolved to seek him amid the wild, war-rent land of the Montezumas. 
After a long and perilous journey to Mexico, she found him, and 
persuaded him, though not without difficulty, to return to his native 
soil. He came back from Mexico in 1866 and setded in St. Louis, 
where he has ever since practiced his profession, with constantlv 
increasing distinction. 

His success in the race for forensic honors has been most remarkable. 
Nine years ago a comparadve stranger, with the strange air of the camp 



COL. A. W. SLAYBACK. 49I 

and of foreign lands upon him, he to-day stands peerless among the 
jurv lawyers of Missouri, and his name is a household word thoughout 
the State. The records of the various courts show that, as a jury 
advocate, he has gained a larger and lost a smaller proportion ot cases 
than any other active practitioner at the St. Louis Bar. His practice is 
now one of the largest in the city, and he is held in high repute for the 
depth and variety of his legal learning ; the eminent readiness of his 
wit, logic and documentary illustrations and authorities ; the skill with 
which he conducts his cases, not only at nisi p'ius, but in the appellate 
courts : and the impassioned fervor of his oratory, w^hich seems almost 
resistless before a jury. Out of thirty-six jury cases in 1874, ^""^ 
appeared in twenty-live for the defendant, gained nineteen, had three 
hung juries and only lost three : in eleven, he appeared for the plaintifl 
and gained all but one in which he was nonsuited. And in 1873, out ot 
over forty cases, he only lost one. In the examining and cross-examin- 
ing of witnesses, he has few rivals in the West ; displaying an acute 
knowledge of human nature and a delicate ingenuity well calculated to 
elicit the truth from the most unwilling. 

A consistent Democrat in politics. Colonel Slayback has never been 
a time-server or office-seeker. Although no man in St. Louis has taken 
a more active part in the various political campaigns of the past nine 
years, his efforts have always been in behalf of his principles, of what 
he believes to be right, of his party and his friends. Handsome and 
commanding in person, strong in his convictions and the innate 
honesty of his nature, full of noble and generous impulses, and gifted 
with an imagination that soars and language that burns — no man in 
Missouri is more powerful before the multitudes. With a mind richly 
stored with historic, philosophic, and poetic lore, he rises to the full 
height of any theme he handles, and where he fails to convince he 
captivates. 

In the midst of all his arduous professional and political labors, he 
finds time to indulge in the sweets of literature, and many of his purely 
literary addreses and magazine articles are of an exalted order of merit. 

In 1859, Colonel Slayback ^"^^^ married to Miss Ahce A., daughter 
of the late William B. Waddell, of Lexington, Missouri, a lady of rare 
wifelv qualities and accomplishments, and fitted by her excellent prac- 
tical mind to be a help-meet to her husband in his lofty aspirations and 
ambitions. 

Colonel Slayback is still a young man, full of the fire of youth, of 
wonderful energy and tireless diligence, learned in his profession. 



492 



BIOGRAPHICAL S K li T C H E S 



gifted with pre-eminently engaging social qualities which draw around 
him multitudes of friends wherever he goes. Eloquent of tongue, and 
with all that straightforward courage and sincerity, that unfaltering- 
integrity of purpose and whole-hearted generosit}' of impulse which tit a 
man for leadership, he is welcomed and appreciated in everv circle, 
social and political, and his hold upon the hearts of the people at lai-gc 
is growing firmer and stronger whh ever}' year. Should he live out the 
allotted span of man, it requires no prophet's pen to predict for him an 
exalted and enduring place in the history of his city, his State and the- 
Republic. 



GARLAND CARR BROADHEAD. 



' A;MONG the pioneers taken prisoners at the defeat of General 
^ jL Burgoyne at Saratoga, during the Revolutionary war, was John 
Broadhead, of Yorkshire, England. Some years previous he 
had emigrated to America, and settled in Albemarle county, Virginia. 
His familv consisted of three sons, the two eldest, Thomas and William, 
being twins. Thomas removed to the southern portion ot Kentucky in 
r8i8. William now resides in that portion of Albemarle county, Vir- 
ginia, called South Mountain Valley, and has attained the age of ninety 
years. 

The third son of John Broadhead was Achilles, born in 1789. He 
was emphatically a self-made man, educating himself by teaching and 
working alternate^. He held many honorable positions in the coimty 
of his nativity. He was an ensign in the army of Virginia during the 
war of 181 2 ; he was also magistrate, presiding justice and county sur- 
veyor of Albemarle county for many years. His wife w^as Mary 
Wisten Carr, descended from one of the most honorable families of 
Virginia, whosea ncestors came to Virginia at an early date in the seven- 
teenth century, and were of Scotch extraction. Their children were 
James O, Broadhead. a well-known and eminent member of the 
St. Louis Bar. Mary Ann, now Mrs. Newby. of Texas. William F.. 
now practicing law in St. Charles, Missouri, and Garland C. Broad- 
head, the subject of this sketch. 

He was born in Albemarle county. Virginia. October 30, 1827, nine 
miles north of Charlottsville. In 1836 his father removed to St. Charles 
county. Missouri, settling in the vicinity of Flint Hill ; where he died 
about 1854. ^fter having filled man}- honorable posts of trust in the 
county. His mother died in Februar\- 1852, belo\'ed by all who knew 
her. 

The early education of young Garland, up to his eleventh year, was 
conducted altogether beneath the parental roof, where he obtained an 
accurate knowledge of the primary branches of an English education. 
He soon acquired a passionate fondness for general reading and mathe- 



494 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



matics, and when he had arrived at his tenth year, he had ah-eady 
become familiar with the Latin grammar. By the time he was seven- 
teen, he had a knowledge of general history, natural science, philoso- 
phy and astronomy. From his seventeenth to his twentieth year, he 
worked on his father's farm, and taught one of the common schools of 
the county. In 1850, Garland entered the State Universit}', and 
devoted one year to mathematical and scientific studies. x\bout this 
time, and while under the tutorship of Professor E. Leffingwell, he 
began to give much of his attention to geology. It was his intention, 
however, to become a civil engineer, and in order to obtain a complete 
knowledge of such branches as were necessary- to further his plans in 
this direction, he attended the Militant Institute, of Drennon Springs, 
Kentucky, which numbered among its professors, General Bushrod R. 
Johnson, Colonel Richard Owen, and Colonel Williamson. Under the 
instruction of Professor Owen, additional attention was paid to the 
study of geology, and leisure moments were devoted to examining, and 
collecting specimens from the rich fossil beds of the silurian rocks of 
Drennon. 

Having passed the examination of 1852, young Garland left for 
Missouri, and obtained a position with a party of engineers engaged in 
making surveys for the Pacific Railroad, in the western portion of the 
State. In November 1852, he was ordered to St. Louis to fill a posi- 
tion in the company's office, where he remained all winter engaged in 
compiling maps, charts, etc., of the surveys. He remained in the 
employ of the company until 1856, a portion of the time being in 
charge of the construction, when, on account of ill-health, he made a 
trip to the East, visiting all the principal cities, and spending six months 
in Virginia. During all this time he never lost an opportunity of 
increasing his knowledge of geology, or indulging his passion for that 
study. 

About the time of his return to Missouri in 1837, the Pacific Railroad 
Company had employed Professor Swallow to make a geological recon- 
noissance along the southwest branch, now the Atlantic and Pacific, 
and had agreed to furnish him an engineer. The Professor immedi- 
ately selected Mr. Broadhead for this position. At the termination of 
the trip. Professor Swallow offered him further emplo3'ment, and he 
accepted the position of Assistant Geologist, for a time bidding farewell 
to civil engineering. Professor Swallow had offered him a similar 
position some two years previous, but it was refused, as Broadhead 
wished to better qualify himself for civil engineering. 



GARLAND C. BROADHEAD. 495 

In August 1857, Mr. Broadhead made a survey of Maries county, 
and later in the season he assisted in laying out Osage, then a part of 
Callaway county. During 1858 he assisted Dr. Z. G. Norwood in 
making a geological survey of Iron, Madison, Callaway, Montgomery 
and Warren counties. From 1857 to 1861 he was employed upon the 
geological survey of Missouri, the war putting a stop to all work of thiji 
nature in the State. During the war, he held the office of clerk and 
deputy collector in the United State's Collector's office in St. Louis. 

In 1864, the Pacific Railroad prepared to build their road west of 
Warrensburg, and Mr. Broadhead obtained a position as assistant engi- 
neer. He relocated the road from Holden to Lee's Summit. This was 
rather an unpropidous period for railroad building — Federal soldiers 
were stationed at all the principal towns, and the woods were the resort 
of bushwhackers, who would occasionally appear and take what they 
stood in need of, foraging on railroad men. 

During the construction of this pordon of the road, Mr. Broadhead 
made the acquaintance of Miss Marion W. Wright, to whom he was 
married December 20, 1864, and settled in Pleasant Hill, Cass county, 
Missouri. 

The latter part of the summer of 1865, the Pacific Road was com- 
pleted in Missouri, and he ceased his connection with it as an engineer. 
The next few years were devoted to the real estate business. He laid 
off lots in most of the new towns ; and served one year as Mayor and 
one year in the city council of Pleasant Hill. 

In 1868, Mr. Broadhead was engaged on the geological survey of the 
State of Illinois, which engagement continued during that summer. 

During 1870, he was engaged in surveying routes for different lines 
of roads in the State, among which were the Louisiana and Missouri 
Railroad, and the Lexington, Chillicothe and Gulf Railroad. 

In 1871, the Missouri Geological Survey was reorganized, and Mr. 
Broadhead was appointed assistant State Geologist. This position he 
held until 1873, when, upon the resignadon of R. Pumpelly, he received 
the appointment of State Geologist, — his appointment dating from 
July I St. 

Thus after years of patient toil and labor, in addition to a deep-rooted 
devodon to science, he was rewarded with the highest posidon in the 
State, at least the highest in his esdmadon. He condnued his surveys 
in different pordons of the State, and the following winter was spent in 
preparing his reports for the press. By December a volume of over 
seven hundred pages octavo was ready for distribudon. Mr. Broadhead 



4q6 Bio(iR aphicai. sketches. 

also contributed largely to the volume published by his predecessor, 
Mr. Pumpelly. He is also a regular contributor to the St. Louis 
Academy of Science, and all his writings are characteristic of deep 
research and learning. He possesses an accurate knowledge of the 
value of minerals, and is especially interested in the studv of fossil 
shells, plants, etc. 

Mr. Broadhead is recognized as one of the most efficient men who 
have as yet filled the very important office of State Geologist, for which 
his patient, enduring research and deep learning eminently quality him. 
No man has been more indefatigable in searching out and making 
public the great mineral resources of Missouri, which in a measure 
form the nucleus of her vast wealth. He is an elegant gentleman, 
stands high in his profession and in society, and one who is of incalcu- 
lable benefit in his day. 



y 






^ 




LEE R. SHRYOCK. 



IN writing a sketch of the life of a man who has had so much to do 
with the advancement and prosperity of a great commercial metrop- 
olis, and who has been as intimately connected with all public enter- 
prises looking to the welfare of St. Louis, as Lee R. Shryock, the 
most we can do, considering our limited space, is to give mere outlines, 
and leave to some future historian the pleasant task of going into 
details. The lives and public services of such men as Mr. Shryock 
are not to be compressed into a few pages, as these lives and actions 
are not confined to a few years. 

Lee R. Shr3^ock is another of those Kentuckians whose lives adorn 
many a page of the history of the great commercial metropolis of the 
Mississippi Valley. He was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, August 
20, 1824. His father, Samuel Shryock, was a native of Hagerstown, 
Maryland, and while still a young man, emigrated to Kentucky, and in 
the year 181 7, engaged in merchandising in Lexington. The year 
following, 1818, he removed to Hopkinsville, where he carried on a 
very lucrative business for fifteen years. The same year, 18 18, he 
married Narcissa, eldest daughter of Hon. John Clark, one of the 
oldest and most respectable citizens of southern Kentucky. From this 
marriage sprung eight children, of whom Lee R. is the third. With a 
foresight highly commendable, his parents earnestly devoted themselves 
to the development in their children of habits of industry and economy, 
and such other qualities and traits of character as would insure a suc- 
cessful career in the future, in whatever walks in life their lots might be 
cast. The result of this early mental and physical training is visible in 
Lee R. Shr3'ock, whose well-developed mind and physical vigor have 
enabled him to act his part in the drama of life in such a manner, that 
his name will live in the memories of men as long as St. Louis stands, 
and her commercial greatness exists. 

Up to his seventeenth 3-ear, Lee R. passed the greater portion of his 
time on a farm. His father intended him for one of the professions, 
and beheving that nature and his own inclinations fitted him for the law. 

3-2 



498 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. ' 

in 1840 he began a course of preparatory studies, before entering upon 
the preHminaries of that profession. But sudden and unexpected cir- 
cumstances rendered such a design impracticable just then, and young 
Shryock, instead of wasting his midnight oil over must}^ tomes of legal 
lore, was saved to the commercial world, which he was, as has been 
demonstrated, destined to adorn. Circumstances of an unpropitious 
nature happening, rendered it necessary that he should devote himself 
to some business in which he could be of assistance to his father, in the 
support of his family. He accordingly engaged in the dry goods 
business, and with such success that in 1847 he was offered a partner- 
ship by Mr. Robert S. Moore, of Clarksville, Tennessee, who advanced 
the necessary capital to estabhsh a house in Hopkinsville. Here again 
we find the business qualifications of the young man carving out his 
fortune ; tor, with such success did he conduct this business, that in 
three years he was enabled to buy out Mr. Moore, and establish a new 
firm in connection with his brother William P., under the style of W. P. 
& L. R. Shryock. It is needless to say the firm succeeded. Their 
business relations as well as their capital increased, until, in 1855, they 
began to cast their eyes about for a more extended field of business 
operations. After some consultation, the brothers finally resolved upon 
removing to St. Louis, which they did, and began the produce business, 
establishing a reputation for integrity and fair deahng second to none in 
the city. Here also their business kept on increasing, and mone}' flowed 
rapidly into their coflers, until the breaking out of the civil war in 1861. 
Southern by birth, and warmly Southern in feelings and sentiments, the 
brothers were finally compelled by military and political necessity, to 
close business. 

Loyal to his convictions of duty to his native State, and firmly 
believing in "State Rights,'* Lee R. went to Kentucky, offered his 
services to the Confederacy, and entered the army under General S. B. 
Buckner. His superior abilities soon brought him into the notice of 
those in authority, and it was not long before he rose to the rank of 
Colonel. He followed the fortunes of the South and surrendered with 
General Joseph E. Johnson, at the close of the war, at Greensboro, 
North Carolina. 

We might here speak of his gallant and invaluable services rendered 
the cause he so much loved, and for which he risked his life and for- 
tune ; but let it sufflce to say, that in war as in peace he performed his 
duty, and performed it well. It is with his long connection with the 
trade and commerce of St. Louis, we have to do, and not with his 



l.EE R. SIIRYOCK. 499 

exploits as soldier and officer of the late Confederate States army. 
When the cause he fought for was crushed, when the star of the Con- 
federacy had set, and its tattered banner had been sorrowfully furled 
by a galaxy of scarred and war-worn veterans, with the frank honesty 
of a true soldier, and the untiring hopefulness and industry of a good 
citizen, he submitted to the result, accepted the situation with becoming 
grace, turned to serve with equal loyalty his whole country, to mitigate 
the sufferings of the defeated South, and out of ruin and chaos, to 
bring peace, plenty and prosperity. 

In 1866 Colonel Shryock returned to St. Louis, and was admitted as 
a partner in the business of Shryock & Rowland, who were the imme- 
diate successors of the lirm of W. P. & L. R. Shryock, established in 
1855, mainly through the efforts of L. R. Shryock, the junior member 
of the house. 

The new firm immediately entered upon the career of prosperity it 
has maintained ever since, and is now one of the largest wholesale 
houses of the city. 

Mr. Shryock was the author of the bill that finally passed Congress, 
making St. Louis and some other Western cities full ports of entry and 
appraisement. At a meeting of the National Board of Trade, held in 
Buffalo, New York, in December 1870, Mr. Shryock, from a committee 
appointed to consider so much of the annual report of the Executive 
Council as related to the transportation of imported goods to the interior 
without appraisement, made a concise and able report on the subject, 
which attracted the attention of the whole mercantile community. He 
was thoroughljMmpressed with the importance of his subject, and into it 
threw his whole soul and energies. He devoted two years of his life to 
this question, until finally St. Louis got all she wanted, and to-day 
enjoys the benefits of his labors. Her merchants now import direct 
from all the outside world on the same terms and conditions as New- 
York, or an}^ of the seaboard cities. 

Possessing, irj a marked degree, many of the varied qualifications 
necessary to carry out to a successful completion enterprises of great 
weight and moment. Colonel Shryock was always one of the first to 
undertake or assist in any measure of public interest. Owing to this 
fact, he is to-day looked upon as one of the leaders in matters of im- 
portance. He was one of the most active advocates of the St. Louis 
Grain Association, and continued to assist in its advancement as one of 
its directors, until the object for which it was organized was fully 
demonstrated. 



500 • BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

He was appointed a delegate to the National Board of Trade, which 
met at Cincinnati in December 1868. It was before this Convention 
that he delivered his well-known addresses upon the "Improvement of 
the Navigation of the Mississippi River," the "Postal Telegraph," the 
" Opening of Bayou Manchac," and other commercial questions, which 
stamped him as a man of the broadest and most liberal views, and gave 
him a national reputation as one of the representative men of the great 
West. At the next annual meeting, he was elected vice-president of 
the National Board of Trade. 

When the movement for the removal of the national capital to St. 
Louis w^as organized, Mr. Shr^-ock was one of the leading agitators of 
the question, and was elected chairman of the executive committee of 
the organization. He presided at the banquet given by the organiza- 
tion, and his speech on this occasion, giving his views upon the subject 
of removal of the capital of the nation from the banks of the Potomac 
to the Mississippi, is spoken of as one of the happiest efforts of 
his life. 

In Januarv 1869, he was almost unanimously elected president of the 
Board of Trade of St. Louis, a position he filled for three successive 
terms, to the utmost satisfaction of the commercial community; and 
when he refused further nomination a unanimous vote of thanks was 
tendered him b\' the merchants, who arose to their feet and by accla- 
mation showed how thoroughly they appreciated his zeal in their serv- 
ice. One of our oldest and most esteemed citizens, in speaking of the 
president's efficiencv, on that occasion, said that Lee R. Shr3'ock had 
bv his unaided efforts, added 50,000 to the population and $50,000,000 
to the wealth of St. Louis. Overcome b}- emotion, Mr. Shr3'ock made 
a replv worthv of the man and the occasion : "Gentlemen, whether 
heard in this world or that above, I believe there is no sound which falls 
so sweeth' on the ear of man as 'well done, thou good and faithful 
servant I " " 

While president of the Board of Trade, Mr. Shr3'ock, by his per- 
sistent efforts, succeeded in pumping new^ life into the Rockford, Rock 
Island and St. Louis, and the St. Louis and Southeastern Railroads, 
that caused them to overcome their embarrassments, sell their bonds, 
and add to St. Louis two grand roads, without a single dollar of expense 
to the cit}-. His annual reports to the Board of Trade are documents 
well worthy the perusal of ever}' merchant in the land, and evidence 
a degree of intellectualitv of the highest order, a deep wisdom, a sound 
logic and a knowledge of the commercial transactions of the world 



LEE R. SHRYOCK. 5OI 

which are simply wonderful. The address he delivered before the 
Clerks' Association of St. Louis, upon the "True Elements of Success," 
upon the special invitation of the young men of that organization, is 
a masterpiece of composition, and it is a source of gratification to every 
Christian man and woman in the land to know^ that this gentleman 
advocates duty to God as of the highest importance to success in life. 

On several occasions Colonel Shryock has contributed to the litera- 
ture of the day, and his articles upon "The Grand Natural Highways 
of the World "and upon the "Mouths of the Mississippi" are worthy 
of special mention. His speech at a banquet given b}' the Cotton 
Association to the press of St. Louis, w^as by far the most comprehen- 
sive of the evening, and was recognized as "the speech of the evening." 
Manufactories have always been a grand theme with him, believing 
them, as he does, to be the basis of our city's "wealth and future glory." 

Colonel Shrvock w^as one of the original founders of the American 
Central Insurance Company, one of the largest and most reliable com- 
panies w^est of New York, and is still a tioistee, and has been a member 
of the finance committee from the beginning. He is also a trustee of 
the Missouri Institute for the Education of the Blind, and a member of 
the financial committee. He is also president of the board of directors 
of the Presbyterian Publishing Company of St. Louis, and has held 
numerous other such positions, that are all work and no pay. Were we 
to enumerate the testimonials tendered Colonel Shr\'Ock, w^e might 
stretch this sketch to an unlimited length. 

Colonel Shryock has always been a strong supporter of any measure 
looking toward the opening of w^ater lines for cheap transportation of 
the cereal products of North America, but especially of the West, to 
the world. When w^e take into consideration that there are seasons 
when wheat and corn are burned as fuel in this country, for the w^ant of 
cheap transportation to foreign markets, while millions of our fellow- 
beings are suffering from the pangs of hunger in many provinces of 
Asia and Europe, we cannot but acknowledge the wisdom of Colonel 
Shryock' s views. 

In 1853, Colonel Shryock was united in matrimony to Miss Carrie 
F., fourth daughter of General S. L. Williams, residing near Mount 
Sterling, Kentucky ; one of Kentucky's loveliest daughters, a lady of 
\aried accomplishments, of unusual brilliancy of intellect and conver- 
sational powers, and in every way worthy of the line from which she 
springs, and of the noble husband whose name she bears. 



^02 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Colonel Shryock is an excellent presiding officer, and at all meetings 
lield for the beneiit of trade or commerce, he is usually chosen as 
chairman, at which, possessing, as he does, an exxellent knowledge of 
parliamentary rules, he presides with dignity and impartiality. As a 
speaker, he has few superiors among those not educated speciall}' to 
oratory : has a frank, kindly bearing, an agreeable voice and pleasing 
address. He delivers his honest, earnest thoughts in a manner well 
calculated to convince, which they seldom, if ever, fail to do. He is 
also noted for his courtesv and gentlemanly bearing in debate. 

Colonel Shryock is still in the meridian of life, and it is the earnest 
hope of his m3a-iads of friends, who are endeared to him by a thousand 
ties, that he has many useful 3^ears still before him. His lirm is very 
popular with all classes of our people, and is doubtless getting rich. Be 
that as it may, he is rich in the affections of his countrymen, and the 
grateful remembrances of his fellow-citizens, in whose memories his 
public services can never die. 




^. a '^. 




ADAM HAMMER, M.D. 



N 



r . . . 

O citv in America has a larger proportion of Germans than St. 

Louis, and nowhere have they exerted a more powerful influence 

in determining the destin}- of a place than here. This is owing to 

the fact that, notwithstanding the great majority of foreigners who come 

to this country belong to the humbler walks of life, still, there are 

also a large number of highly educated and refined men who seek a 

home in the United States, and fortunatel}^ for us, St. Louis seems to 

be their chief point of attraction ; consequently, we have, so far, had 

more distinguished scientists, more renowned statesmen, and more 

enterprising business men among the Germans than any other city in the 

Union. 

Among the professional and purely scientific men, none stand higher 
than Dr. Adam Hammer, who was born at Mingalsheim, near Mann- 
heim and Heidelberg, on the Rhine, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
Germany, December 27, 1818. 

At the age of eleven years he entered the high school (gvmnasium) 
at Bruchsal, and gained in every class the first prize. 

In 1837, he entered the Universit}- of Heidelberg, where, for the first 
two years, he studied the natural sciences, and more especially mathe- 
matics, with a view of becoming a teacher in that department. After 
he had become an accomplished mathematician, his father, being 
dissatisfied with the political aspect of Germany, emigrated to America, 
and his son not being well acquainted with the institutions of this 
country, thought there was but one profession in which he would 
succeed, and with that view, commenced the study of medicine at 
Heidelberg, and afterwards prosecuted his studies in Paris. After 
studying six courses in three years, he graduated with great distinc- 
tion in 1842, and immediately entered the regular arm}- as assistant 
surgeon. After three years* service he resigned, and commenced 
private practice at Mannheim, where he practiced with good success. 

In 1847, when the Sanderbund-War broke out in Switzerland, the 
citizens of Mannheim, where the Doctor then resided, adopted resolu- 
tions of sympathy with the established government, and forwarded an 



504 BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES. 

address to the parties in power, and delegated Dr. Hammer to deliver 
the same. After he had accomplished his mission, he offered his 
services to the Swiss Government, and served on the staff of General 
Ochsenbein, to the end of the war. 

In the spring of 1848, enthused with ideas of liberty, he joined the 
revolutionists in Germany. Upon the failure of his party, he was 
driven from his home, and accompanied by his friend, Frederick Hecker, 
he came to St. Louis, arriving here October 28, 1848. 

In 1850, at the urgent solicitation of his friend Dr. M. L. Linton, 
he became a member of the St. Louis Medical Society, since which' 
time his career has been well known to the medical men of our city 
and the entire West. 

During his connection with this, the representative medical society of 
the West, for nearly a quarter of a century, he was friiinis inter pares ; 
and was universally acknowledged, alike by friends and foes, as a very 
remarkable man, not only for the extent of his acquirements, the 
thoroughness of his knowledge of. the science of medicine, his won- 
derful memory and quickness of perception, but also for his readiness 
and power in debate. No matter what subject was brought before the 
society — whether concerning the ordinary ever3'-day practice, or involv- 
ing the more minute knowledge of histology, pathology and physiology, 
or pertaining entirely to some specialty — he was equally at home, and 
very few were able or willing to contend with him in debate. Every 
one could see that he did his own thinking, and was never at fault from 
lack of knowledge of his profession. His delivery was so forcible, and 
his exposure of ignorance so palpable, that he unintentionally became 
offensive to many who were unable to compete with him, and unwilling 
to acknowledge their own ignorance. His great power in debate was 
also felt and well known in the Missouri State Medical Association and 
the'An.2rican Medical Association. 

In 1853 he returned to Europe, for the purpose of thoroughh' 
acquainting himself with the rapid progress of modern sciences, — more 
especially those pertaining to medicine. He there studied histology and 
pathological anatomy under Charles Robin of Paris, at the same time 
with his friend Dr. Walter Atlee of Philadelphia, and afterward prose- 
cuted the same studies under Professors Kolliker and Virchow at Wurz- 
burg. He paid special attention to surgery and ophthalmology, the study 
of which he pursued with great zeal. 

Returning to America, he became more than ever convinced of the 
want of thoroughness in medical education in this country, and, with a 



A D A I\I H A M M E R , M . D . 505 

view of initiating a change, he founded the College of Medicine and 
Natural Sciences, in St. Louis, in 1855, in which institution he filled the 
chair of anatomy and surgery. This institution, however, could not be 
sustained, on account of three distinguished European professors not 
complying with their promise to join Dr. Hammer in his undertaking. 

In 1857, he originated the German Institute, which is still in existence, 
and he was its first president. 

In 1859, ^^^ inaugurated, in company with several prominent German 
physicians, the Humboldt Medical Institute, with the European system 
of teaching. Dr. Hammer was not only the professor of surgery, 
anatomy, histology, pathological anatomy and ophthalmolog^' in this 
institution, but also its dean, lecturing as many as four hours a day, 
besides holding surgical cliniques, and acting as demonstrator of anatomv 
in the evenings without compensation, farther than the gratification of 
his natural love of the sciences, his earnest desire to promote the 
advancement of his profession, and the elevation of the standard of 
medical education. A number of excellent physicians graduated from 
this school, who not onh* honor their profession, but still venerate 
Dr. Hammer as a father. 

At the breaking out of the war, in 1861, Dr. Hammer enhsted in 
the army and served in the three month's service as Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Fourth Missouri Infantry. Retiring from command 
in the field he was appointed Brigade Surgeon, and acted with that 
rank in charge of large militar}- hospitals until the end of the war, and 
frequently served upon the Examining Board. 

After the close of the war he re-established the Humboldt Medical 
Institute, as the Humboldt Medical College, and adopted the EngHsh 
language as the medium of teaching. He was again elected dean and 
professor of surgery, pathological anatoni}' and ophthalmology, and the 
institution continued to flourish until 1869, when, during Dr. H? imer's 
absence in Europe, some of his so-called friends, in order to further 
their own interests, so changed and undermined the college as to 
destroy its organization and exclude Dr. Hammer from its management. 

On his return to St. Louis, the faculty of the Missouri Medical 
College, fully appreciating his great ability as a teacher, at once offered 
him the chair of pathological anatomy and surgery, which he, with 
much hesitancy, but at the urgent request of his particular friends, 
Drs. Paul F. Eve and John H. Watters, accepted. Fie remained in 
connection with this institution for three years, sustaining his reputation 
as a brilliant lecturer and thorough teacher.. At the end of this time. 



5o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

not being able to coincide with the views of the remainder of the 
faculty, he resigned in disgust, being fully convinced that it would have 
been much better never to have formed so unsuitable an alliance. 
Since this time Dr. Hammer has devoted his whole time to the practice 
of his profession — more especiallv to surgerv. 

As a surgeon, he has always been consciendous in the performance of 
his dudes, and never paraded his operations in the public press to gain 
a lictidous reputation and to make money ; for he alwavs despised pre- 
tenders and quacks, no matter when and where they exhibited them- 
selves. He is an accurate and acute diagnostician ; a bold operator, 
having performed, with success, many operations never performed 
before in St. Louis, or even in America : also having operated repeat- 
edly on desperate cases refused by other eminent surgeons. He has 
been particularly successful in plastic surgery, and has been highlv 
compHmented for his skill in such operadons. 

He has contributed many valuable medical papers to our journals, 
and, many years ago, did much to famiharize the American medical 
profession with German medical literature, which, until then, was but 
litde known and less appreciated in this country. He thereby con- 
tributed much toward establishing the custom of transladng nearly all 
good German works into the English language. The German popula- 
tion of St. Louis are under many obligations to Dr. Hammer for the 
industry which he has dispkwed in bringing about a proper appreciadon 
of the German element in our midst. Though German by birth, he is 
a true American at heart, as he has always proven himself. He is an 
enemy to all kinds of isms, and belongs to no church ; and though fre- 
quently urged to connect himself with one for business purposes, if for 
no other reason, he has always replied that religion should never be 
prosdtuted to seltishness. CosmopoHtan in his views, he is liberal and 
tolerant to the utmost, but reserves the same right of independence for 
himself. He is a thorough Ladn and Greek scholar : also a master of 
the German, French, Italian and EngHsh languages, and an enthusiasdc 
cultivator of the hne arts, more especially music. 

He is the author of many invaluable papers on medical subjects, 
among which was one upon the use of ether in surgery and obstetrics : 
and he introduced the use of ether in obstetrics in Germanv simultane- 
ously with Dubois in Paris, and Sir James Y. Simpson in Edinburg — 
not at the time knowing anything of other experiments. Another paper 
which attracted much attention was, statisdcs of the amputations per- 
formed b^- himself, showing a wonderful success. He was also the first 



ADAM HAMMER, M.I). :)0'J 



to explain the true pathology of sunstroke, and advised the only suc- 
cessful treatment — that which is now generally accepted as correct — so 
that if he had done nothing else but this, his name would never be for- 
gotten. His reputation is cosmopolitan, and he is a member of numer- 
ous scientific bodies at home and abroad. He has been president of 
the St. Louis Medical Society, St. Louis Pathological Society, and was 
once a member of the School Board. 



DARWIN W. MARMADUKE. 



yS it is the purpose of this work to represent St. Louis, not only as 
she is to-day, but to conve}- as well ideas and impressions of her 
future greatness and destin}-, we have thought to introduce a short 
sketch of one of her citizens and merchants, who, already prominent!}' 
identified with the financial and commercial interests of the city, gives 
promise of becoming one of the leading characters in her future growth 
and history. 

He whose name we record aboxe, first entered upon a business career 
in 1858. in St. Louis, as a commission merchant, with his brother-in- 
law. Mr. L. B. Harwood. the st}'le of the firm being Harwood & Mar- 
maduke. The house, from the beginning, enjoyed a lucrative trade, 
having an extensive business In the hemp producing districts of the 
State, which, at that time, was regarded as the most satisfactory and 
profitable contiguous to St. Louis. This prosperity, however, was of 
short duration. The political complications of i860 disorganized and 
demoralized all healthy and legitimate trade, so that mercantile failures 
and embarrassments were b}' no means uncommon, and came upon 
many who. but a little while before, thought themselves on the highway 
to fortune. This firm shared such a fate, and the junior member, who 
at that time was but twenty years of age, was suddenly rendered 
penniless, and left with heavy liabilities resting upon him ; and, to add 
to the weight of these responsibilities, he was but a few months before 
married to Miss Jennie Sappington. a lad}' born and reared amid all of 
the refining and elevating influences which wealth and high social posi- 
tion confer. It was a trying ordeal for one so young, and for one, too, 
who so keenly appreciated his situation. But, hopeful and undaunted, 
he resolutely set to work to retrieve what was lost, and, though advised 
and urged by his friends to take advantage of the bankrupt law, he 
steadily refused to do so. 

About this time he removed to Saline, his native county, and a 
vacancy occurring in the sherifialty, at the solicitation of many citi- 
zens Governor Stewart appointed him to the oflice. Here he served 
efiiciently for some months, but owing to the very disturbed condition 



5IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of affairs in that locality, which rendered property unsafe, he resigned, 
fearing a continuance in office might involve his bondsmen. He was 
now tendered and accepted the position as cashier of the Branch Bank 
of the State of Missouri at Arrow Rock, in the same county, where he 
remained until near the close of the war. In the spring of 1865 he 
engaged in farming on quite an extensive scale, and it was about this 
time that a series of afflictions came, which in a few months bereft him 
of his entire famil}' : a wife, a son and a daughter he followed to the 
grave in quick succession. Saddened with grief and disappointments, 
he removed from the scenes of his recent misfortunes, and with his 
brother, General John S. Marmaduke, came to St. Louis, where, in 
connection with Dr. Wyatt M. Brown, they established the commission 
house of Marmaduke & Brown. The history of this house, of which 
he is now the senior partner, has been most gratifying in every respect. 
It has a prominence and influence, and reputation for enterprise and 
public-spiritedness worthy of the great city, and has business connec- 
tions from Maine to Mexico. 

Among other positions of trust in this city, Mr. Marmaduke is a 
director in the Third National Bank, Lumbermen and Mechanics' Insu- 
rance Company, and St. Louis Cotton Compress Company. His career of 
late years furnishes a forcible illustration of what may be accomplished 
by determination, activity and self-reliance, for in this short period he 
has succeeded in discharging in full all of his old obligations and laid 
the foundation for a handsome fortune. 

Mr. Marmaduke, who is now but thirty-tive years of age, was born 
in Saline county, Missouri. 

His father, ex-Governor M. M. Marmaduke, was, for many years, 
one of the leading citizens in the political and industrial affairs of the 
State. His paternal grandfather was the son of Sir Miles Marmaduke, 
a man of renown in the times of George II, and who participated in 
and was overcome in a rebellion against that monarch in about 1750. 
Anticipating the result of this contest, Sir Miles Marmaduke sent his 
only child, a son, Vincent, who was then about eighteen years old, to 
America. He settled in Virginia, and purchased a large land grant — 
what is now Westmoreland county — named in commemoration of his 
native county in the northeast of England. 

D. W. Marmaduke' s mother, Lavinia, was the daughter of John 
Sappington, a ph3^sician of eminence and distinction in his profession : 
and through his mother he is also closely related to the Breathitt famil}' 
of Kentucky, now passed away, but who a half century ago were 



DARWIN W . MARMADUKE. 51I 

amoniy the most distinguished in the State, and the most gifted in the 
nation. 

The greater part of D. W. Marmaduke's childhood and youth were 
passed in his native county, at such schools as were then atfbrded. 
The traits which as a man have characterized his actions, were plainly 
discernable while at school. He was apt and made rapid progress in 
his studies : and when fifteen years old was called away from school to 
undertake the adjustment of a large unsettled business scattered through 
the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. At this 
tender age, unattended, he rode horseback from Missouri through each 
of these States, visiting all sections of them. The business was of a 
nature that brought him in contact with a great many persons, and as 
a consequence often times with men utterly destitute of principle, who, 
observing his youth, would think to take advantage of his inexperience 
and helplessness. He returned from this trip after several months" 
absence, and it gave such satisfaction that his employers solicited him 
to make another, which he did, with like gratifying results. 

Mr. Marmaduke is of medium height, with large hazel eyes, which, 
in animation, light up and give the face a highly intelligent expression ; 
this, with a prominent nose and large mouth, contributes to make a 
physiognomy that will attract attention at all times. Of a nervous, 
sanguine temperament, he is quick to think and likewise to act — this 
latter, however, is held somewhat in abeyance by a large development 
of caution which doubtless will continue to serve to steady and improve 
his judgment. 

His manner is dignified, easy and courteous, without possessing that 
geniality which readily assimilates and attracts each individual with 
whom he may come in contact. He is not a seeker after popularity, is 
eminently just in all intercourse with his fellow-man, and does not 
hesitate to antagonize any interest which interrupts or hinders what he 
conceives to be a correct course of action. Throughout all of the 
long embarrassments which shrouded his progress and which were of 
a character to try men's virtues, his conduct was such as to stamp him 
us a man of unswerving integrity. And, having severely felt the 
chastening rod of adversity, he sympathizes with and keenly appreciates 
the efforts of young men in their struggles, and is always the earnest 
and useful friend of those whom he believes merit it. 

In February 1870, Mr. Marmaduke was married the second time — 
Miss Mary, a daughter of Colonel James Crawford, of Mobile, Alabama, 
becoming his wife. Three children are born of this union. 



HENRY S. TURNER. 



THE ancestors of Major Henry S. Turner were among the 
most respected of the old Dominion, his mother being a Ran- 
dolph, a name than which no brighter stands upon the records of 
Virginia. 

He was born in King George count}', Virginia, April i, 1811. His 
early education received that strict attention which gentlemen of the 
period were accustomed to bestow upon their children, and ever}- 
preparation was made to prepare him to fill a course in life at once 
honorable to himself and worthy of the stock from which he is 
descended. After the usual preliminary course ot studies, he finally 
entered the military academy at West Point, where he remained four 
years, successfully passing through the physical and mental ordeal, to 
which cadets are subjected before the}- are admitted as officers in the 
military service of the United States. 

As an officer, he soon won most honorable distinction, and was finally 
honored by being selected, with two others, to attend the Royal School 
of Cavalry, at Saumur, France, for the purpose of studying the cavalry 
tactics, which the French, under such military leaders as the first 
Napoleon and his marshals had carried to remarkable perfection. He 
creditabl}- acquitted himself of his honorable mission, and^ after a resi- 
dence of fifteen months at this famous school, he returned to the United 
States in 1840, to give his country the benefit of his labors. The better 
to effect this end, Major Turner, and Lieutenant Eustis, who had been 
with him at the school at Saumur, were detailed by the Secretary of War 
to translate the French cavalry tactics they had learned, and, by judi- 
cious alterations and modifications, adapt them to the requirements of 
the American cavalry service. So accurately did these officers perform 
the duty required of them, and so highly was their work esteemed, that 
a board of officers of high rank, specially convened, unhesitatinglv 
approved it, and their "Tactics of Cavalry" became standard authority 
for the cavalry branch of the service. The time occupied in the 
33 



514 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



translation and preparation of this work, which consisted of three vol- 
umes, was four months. Joel R. Poinsett was then Secretary of War, 
and Martin Van Buren was President. 

In February 1841, Major, then Lieutenant Turner, married Miss 
Julia M. Hunt of St. Louis, the daughter of Theodore Hunt and Ann 
Lucas, a lady of most admirable qualities, and much beloved by all 
who know her. His family consists of ten children, live sons and live 
daughters. 

After his accession into the ranks of the United States army as an 
officer, but little opportunity had been aflbrded Lieutenant Turner to 
gain military glory, something dear to the soul of every soldier. Dur- 
inf>- the war with Mexico, which added the Lone Star State to the 
Union, Lieutenant Turner was an active and chivalrous officer, serving 
during the entire campaign, and receiving as a reward for his valuable 
services the rank of Captain. In 1848 he was breveted Major, as the 
records of the War Department testify, "for gallant and meritorious 
conduct in the battles of San Pasquel, San Gabriel and Plains of Mesa 
in California." 

The same year Major Turner resigned from the army, and turned 
his attention to the pleasing pursuits of agriculture, near St. Louis. He 
remained thus engaged until 1850, when he received the appointment 
of Assistant Treasurer of the United States in this city, which office he 
held until 1853, when he resigned, and going to California, established 
the banking house of Lucas, Turner & Co. This financial institution 
remained in operation until 1857. Major Turner, however, returned to 
St. Louis in 1853, and became a member of the banking firm of Lucas 
& Simonds, in which he continued until the dissolution of the co-part- 
nership in 1858. 

During his career in St. Louis, he has filled many important and 
trustworthy offices, and has ever held the entire confidence of his fellow- 
citizens. In 1858, he was elected to the General Assembl}- of the 
State. He was president of the Union National Bank of St. Louis, and 
served in that capacity from 1857 to 1870. He was elected president 
of the Lucas Bank, and served from 1870 to 1874. ^^ ""^'^^ elected to 
the City Council in 1874, ^^'^ '^^ ^^ present one of the most honored and 
efficient members of that honorable body. In all of the above positions 
Major Turner commanded the esteem and regard of his associates. 

On account of his high personal standing and acknowledged respon- 
sibility as a citizen, he was appointed executor of the late Louis A. 
Benoist, which trust he has managed with great care and safety to 



HENRY S. TURNER 



:)^:) 



those personally and publicly interested. He also has charge of tin- 
private business of Mrs. Hunt, as well as one-third of her large estate, 
and, also manages the private interests of Mrs. James H. Lucas — all 
places of great trust and personal responsibility. 

Major Turner is popular with all classes of our citizens. He is a 
zealous advocate of works of a public character, and is ever read}" to 
promote internal improvements. He is practical in his ideas, earnest 
in action, and is known as one of the most efficient of citizens. He was 
one of the incorporators of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical 
Association, and one of the most trusted members of that organization. 
In the different vocations of life he has been called upon to till. 
Major Turner has acquitted himself with honor and credit : as a banker 
he is honorable and above reproach ; as a legislator he is broad, liberal 
and practical in his views, and as a military officer, the official docu- 
ments of the War Department bear testimony to his merit. A good 
citizen and honorable man, he well deserves all the honors his fello\N- 
citizens have showered upon him. 




A^£^ 



'^^O-'^^t^^^^^^ 



DAVID P. ROWLAND. 



®AVID PITMAN ROWLAND, president of the St. Louis Mer- 
chants' Exchange, and member of the mercantile house of 
Shryock & Rowland, was born in Richmond, Madison county, 
Kentucky, in the year 1832. His father, David Irvine Rowland, was a 
substantial, well-to-do merchant in Richmond for a period of forty 
years, having moved from Campbell county, Virginia, to Richmond 
in the year 1806. His mother's maiden name was Mahala H. T3'ree, 
who was a Virginian by birth, and went to Richmond in the year 1818. 
The grandmother of David Pitman Rowland, on his father's side, was 
the daughter of David Irvine, one of the earliest settlers of Kentucky. 
The early educational advantages of young Rowland were not such 
as a lad of his spirit and independence could, perhaps, have wished : 
for, while he did, at one period, entertain the desire of fitting himself 
for a professional career, he yet brought his studies to a close, at the 
school of his native town, at the early age of fourteen years. At this 
school he acquired the rudiments of a good English education, with, 
perhaps, a slight knowledge of the elementary branches of the classics. 
These, however, were but imperfectly learned ; and, abandoning all 
thoughts of fitting himself for a professional life, he turned his attention 
to mercantile pursuits. Fixed in this purpose, and firmly resolved to 
overcome all obstacles, he entered the store of Field & Hollowav, in 
his native town, who, at that period, conducted the largest establish- 
ment, as dealers in general merchandise, which was to be found in all 
that section of country. The boy clerk had not remained here long- 
before his aptitude for commercial life became manifest to his emplov- 
ers. His advancement was rapid ; his deportment gentlemanly ; his 
manners afiable ; and he was promoted on account of his industr}' and 
integrity. It was comparatively but a short time before he had the run 
of a business as large and lucrative as that of any in that portion of the 
State. Into all his business avocations young Rowland carried a steady 
purpose. Blessed with perfect health, and a strong, robust constitution, 
his energy and uprightness were marked characteristics which his em- 



5l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

plovers were not slow to appreciate. From time to time, his compen- 
sation was increased, and being free from those habits of idleness and 
dissipation which many 3^oung men are addicted to, he was enabled to 
save, out of his earnings each year, a goodly sum with which to com- 
mence on his own account at a later period. 

Young Rowland remained with Field & Holloway until November 9, 
1853, when, at the age of twenty-two, he paid an accidental visit to 
St. Louis, arriving here November 13, 1853. Previous to coming to 
St. Louis, Mr. Rowland had visited, at ditler^nt times, nearly all the 
principal cities in the country — North as well as South — but not one of 
all the commercial centres that he had seen in his various pleasure or 
business trips, made so strong an impression on his mind as a live com- 
mercial metropolis, as did St. Louis. After remaining here a few 
weeks, and becoming thoroughly convinced of the value and import- 
ance of the commercial relations of the city, Mr. Rowland accepted a 
position in the dry goods house of A. J. McCreery & Co., where he 
remained up to i860. At that time, with a moderate capital of a few 
thousand dollars, every dollar of which he had earned, he commenced 
business on his own account, occupying unpretentious quarters on 
Locust, betw^een Main and Second streets. His business at that time 
was confined almost exclusively to the leaf tobacco trade, which became 
large and lucrative. 

In 1862, Mr. Rowland formed a partnership with Mr. W. P. Shryock. 
and, in addition to the leaf tobacco business, enjjafred in the business of 
pork-packing, which proved a very profitable venture. 

In November 1863, Mr. Rowland was married to Miss Mattie H. 
Shackelford, daughter of William H. Shackelford, formed}- of Paris, 
Kentucky. 

January i, 1864, we date the beginning of the firm — since become so 
distinguished in the commercial histor^' of St. Louis — of Shrvock tt 
Rowland. The firm entered at once into a "'eneral commission business, 
dealing in and handling all kinds of domestic produce, with their business 
location at No. 210 North Commercial street. Since the formation of this 
firm, its history is so closeh" identified with the commercial progress of 
St. Louis up to the present time, that it is almost impossible to speak of 
one without referring to the other. This house may be accredited with 
being the pioneers in the establishment of trade relations between this 
city and the South, and of making these relations reciprocal ; and no 
small share of this work is due to the great prudence, energy and fore- 
sight of Mr. David P. Rowland. Mr. Rowland had confidence in the 



DAVID P. ROWLAND; . 5I9 

South — confidence in the commercial integrity of her people, which has 
never wavered in times of their prosperity or adversity — and no sooner 
had the war been brought to a close than ev'ery effort was made by this 
hrm to restore and establish commercial relations with them. This tirm 
saw the great benefits that would inure to them, and to the commercial 
prosperity of St. Louis, by securing the trade of Arkansas, and in the 
3^ear 1868 there was projected, and put into successful operation, the 
Arkansas and White River Packet Company, comprising six boats, of 
which companv Mr. D. P. Rowland was the vice-president. It was 
through this enterprise that nearh' all the business of the White River 
country was brought to St. Louis, having thus been diverted from its 
old channels which had led the trade of that section formerl}' to Cincin- 
nati, Louisville and New Orleans. The firm of Shryock & Rowland 
also projected the St. Louis and Red River Packet Company, com- 
prising some six or seven boats. The first boat ever loaded at St. Louis 
direct for Shrevoport, was the Gerard B. Allen, and when others failed 
to join the firm in making up the cargo, they loaded her entirely them- 
selves with a cargo of groceries and a general assortment of produce, 
valued at upwards of $100,000. This venture was not, for reasons 
which it is unnecessar}' here to explain, a pecuniar}^ success, but the 
loss sustained b}' the firm, through the greed of others, was not larger 
than they were abundantly able to stand. To undertake these enter- 
prises required a good deal of nerve, but they were carried through 
by this firm when other strong merchants refused to lend to them, 
at the beginning, their encouragement and material support. 

On the 8th of September 1864, Mr. Rowland met wath a severe 
domestic afiiiction in the loss of his beloved wife, leaving him one 
child. In April 1866 Mr. Rowland was a second time married, his 
present wife being a daughter of Mr. J. A. J. Aderton, president of the 
Vallev National Bank of this citv, and bv w^hich marriag^e he has a 
lovely daughter, now eight years of age, w^hose name — Belle Rowland 
— is borne by one of the river palaces engaged in the St. Louis and 
Southern trade. 

But it is not alone as a successful merchant that Mr. Rowland has 
occupied a conspicuous and useful position in the community in which 
he lives. While he has never sought political ofiice, he has filled mauA- 
important and responsible ofiices, which have been thrust upon him h\ 
popular election. His present position as the thirteenth president of 
the St. Louis Merchants* Exchange is a distinguished honor — the high- 
est in the gift of the merchants of St. Louis — and was conferred upon 



520 BIOGRAPHICALS KETCHES. 

him at the annual election, on the 6th of January 1875. T'he presi- 
dential contest at that date was one ot' the most exciting that ever took 
place in mercantile circles in the histor}^ of Exchange elections ; the 
largest vote the members ever brought out on any similar occasion was 
then polled, and Mr. Rowland was successful over one of the strongest 
and most popular gentlemen whom the opponents to the regular ticket 
could name. The occasion was the more interesting and exciting on 
account of the expected completion and opening of the new Chamber of 
Commerce, which will take place, in all probability, during the present 
year: an occasion which, on account of the magnitude of the enterprise, 
and cost of this great commercial structure, will form a memorable 
epoch in the history of St. Louis. The customary serenade tendered 
to the new president at his residence, on the evening of the 8th of 
January, by the merchants of the Exchange, was one of the largest ever 
tendered to any former president ; for, although the night was bitterl}- 
cold, full}' six hundred members were in attendance. The occasion 
was indeed, a memorable and happy one, and the compliment was as 
sincere as it was hearty. 

Mr. Rowland is the only president of the Merchants' Exchange who 
has been called upon to tender its hospitalities to a foreign potentate. 
When Kalakaua, King of the Sandwich Islands, visited St. Louis, in 
March 1875, he was received "on 'Change," and Mr. Rowland, on 
behalf of the merchants of the city, delivered the address of welcome. 

Prior to the election of Januar}' 6, Mr. Rowland had tilled the posi- 
tion of director of the Merchants' Exchange four 3'ears in succession ; 
is a director in the Phcenix Insurance Companj^ — a St. Louis institution, 
and one of the oldest in the city — a director, also, in the Mound City 
Building Association ; is vice-president of the Willard Improved Barrel 
Company ; a director in the Vallc}- National Bank : is Past-Master and 
High Priest of a Chapter in the Masonic fraternity, having been admitted 
to that order on the night he was twenty-one years of age (which is a 
distinction somewhat unusual); and last, and by no means least, has 
been, for nearly seven years past, a director in the St. Louis Provident 
Association, of which he has been one of the most active members, 
giving largely of his own means, and soliciting pecuniary aid in its 
support from his mercantile associates. 

In this association Mr. Rowland has, from the iirst, taken a special 
interest. He has acted upon the principle that, in leaving this world 
nothing can be taken away, and that a good name, is after all, prefera- 
ble to great riches. He values money only for the good that may be 



DAVID P. ROWLAND. 521 

accomplished by its proper use. During his Hfe, Mr. Rowland has, in 
all his transactions, acted so as to win the confidence of all men who 
know him. In business life he has always been successful. 

Since his election to the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce, 
events of one kind and another have followed each, other in rapid 
succession, so that standing as the representative head of the com- 
mercial interests of the city, much has been required of him. It is 
needless to say that Mr. Rowland has discharged all his public trusts 
with credit to himself and satisfaction to those who conferred. 

So varied and numerous have been Mr. Rowland's services to the 
citv of his adoption, that we had almost omitted mention of the fact 
that he contributed largely to the establishment of the St. Louis Cotton 
Exchange. Through its workings several millions of dollars have been 
added to the annual trade of the city. 

Mr. Rowland's religious views are those of the Old School Presby- 
terian church. He is a consistent member and faithful trustee of the 
Central Presbyterian church of this city, of which the Rev. Dr. Brank 
is pastor. Mr. Rowland is now in the prime of a vigorous manhood : 
enterprising, but not speculative ; cautious, without being over-timid : 
strictly honorable and punctilious in the fulfillment of every obligation, 
and disposed to exact and equal degree of promptness and fidelity on 
the part of others : yet capable of the largest measure of generosity and 
liberality. 



EDWARD MONTGOMERY, M.D. 



'vAy^MONG the older members of the medical profession in St. Louis 
^ j^ no one ranks higher as a general practitioner and a high-toned, 
honorable gentleman, than Dr. Edward Montgomery. He was 
born in Ballymena, near Belfast, in the count}' of Antrim, Ireland. 
December 20, 1816. 

His mother was the third wife of his father, and had eleven children, 
eight sons and three daughters, of whom only one daughter and three 
sons now survive. His father and mother died about eight 3'ears ago at 
the ripe age of eighty-hve and eighty-three respectively. The subject 
of this sketch received his preparatory education at a grammar school 
in his native town, and afterward pursued his collegiate studies at the 
Roval Academical Institution of Belfast, which has since been merged 
into one of the Queen's Colleges of Ireland. 

From 1834 ^^ 1S38 he studied medicine at the Universit}* of Edin- 
burg, and there received his degree in August 1838. Immediately 
afterward, he commenced the practice of his profession in his native 
town, in the same house where his grandfather had practiced a hundred 
vears previously. ^ 

In July 1839, hti^as married to Hanna French, of French Park, 
near Belfast, who is still living, and by whom he has had eight children, 
five sons and- three daughters, six of whom are now living and nearly 
all have reached maturitv. 

In September 1842, fearing pulmonary consumption, which had been 
hereditarv in his family, he determined to come to America, and to seek 
a home in our Southern States. 

After a sea voyage of sixtv-three days, he arrived in New Orleans, in 
which cit}' and in Jackson, Mississippi, he diligently and continuously- 
pursued his profession until January 1849, when he came to St. Louis, 
where he has made his home ever since, and with but little relaxation 
has sedulouslv devoted his time and talents to the practice of medicine. 

Successful from the beginning in securing a good share of practice, 
the fearful epidemic of cholera, which scourged our city in that awful 
vear. brought him, like manv other heroic medical men, prominently 



524 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

before the public, and enabled him to lay the foundation for an exten- 
sive and profitable practice, which he has ever since enjoyed, and gave 
him a foothold which has strengthened with the growth of our won- 
derful city. So busily was he engaged in his practice, that nearly a 
quarter of a century elapsed before he could find time to revisit his 
native country. In the summer of 1873, after an absence of thirty-one 
years, he, accompanied by his wife, daughter and grand-daughter, 
visited his old home, made a tour through the British Islands, P" ranee, 
Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Austria, and was a com- 
missioner to the World's Exhibition at Vienna. His trip abroad was 
not only pleasant in every particular, but exceedingly instructive and 
interesting, and gave him a higher appreciation of the ability and 
capacity of American medical men than he had ever held before, for it 
convinced him that, in the practical application of our art, we were in 
advance of almost every nation. Although the Doctor has been one of 
the fortunate few who has almost always enjoyed a large and lucrative 
practice, his success in making money has not made him forget his duties 
to his profession and to suffering humanity, and, from the vast store- 
house of his own practical experience, he has given out much for the 
benefit of medical men, and mankind in general. 

From 1843 to 1849, "^"^'hilst residing in the South, he contributed several 
papers to the medical literature of the country, which were published 
in the Nezu Orleans Medical and Surgical yoitrnal, and among 
which may be mentioned articles upon Typhus and Typhoid Fever, 
Pernicious Fever, Erysipelatous Fever, or blacktongue, etc. Since 
a resident of St. Louis, he has written a larg^ number of medical 
essays of great practical interest for the St. Louis medical journals, 
among the most noteworthy of which were the articles on Cholera, 
Chorea, Croup, Cerebro-spinal Meningitis, Colitis, Post-partum inflam- 
mation. Scarlatina, Uterine Haemorrhage, Variola, and the ^Antiphlogistic 
Treatment of Diseases, all of which have been instructive and 
entertaining. 

Dr. Montgomery has, for many years, been an active working member 
of the Missouri State Medical Association and the St. Louis Medical 
Society, and has enjoyed the distinguished honor of being the president 
of both learned bodies. He is also a member of the American Medical 
Association, and has attended a number of its meetings as a delegate 
from our societies. 

Devoted to his profession from the beginning, he has suffered nothing 
to distract his attention : not even places of position and honor have ever 



EDWARD M0NTG0MP:RV, !\I . D . 525 

allured him from his path of duty, but he has kept straight on with a 
wonderful singleness of purpose, and devoted all his time to the prac- 
tical pursuit of his profession, the result of which has been the enjo^•- 
ment of one of the very largest and most profitable practices in St. 
Louis, and the universal confidence and respect of his patients. 

As a general practitioner, he has very few equals, and no superiors 
among us. He is quick and accurate in diagnosis, and very thoroughlv 
skilled in the application of remedies, and has a most remarkable 
power in pleasing his patients and inspiring them with confidence, so 
that no man retains his practice better than he. As a writer, he is 
lucid and free from all affectation, and his essa3's are always full of 
sense and information. 

Liberal-minded and generous-hearted by nature, he is tolerant and 
courteous to all, and exacts nothing more than he is willing and glad to 
concede to those who differ with him. He is a devoted husband and 
parent, a most genial companion, a true friend, and an unpretending- 
gentleman. Long may he live to enjoy the competency which he has 
gained, and the confidence of his professional compeers. 



J. F. ALEXANDER, 



' I \ HE subject of this sketch is, in eveiy sense, a representative 
.JL_ Western man. A native of the State of IlHnois, he has from 
his 3'outh been identified with the progressive movements, in 
both thought and action, that, during the last quarter of a century, 
have conspired to shift the center of poHtical and intellectual power 
from the slopes of the Alleghanies to the Valley of the Mississippi. 
This western sweep of empire raised, in a rapidly developing country, 
a race of men who stood boldly in the face of great events, shaping 
them to their purposes with rare ability and foresight — men who were 
undismayed in the face of difficulties, and w^ho, with prescient calm- 
ness, traced the paths in which the trade of the future was to flow, and 
laid down the propositions which were destined to rule the thought of 
more than one generation- These propositions have been modified 
with the changing conditions that have so rapidly succeeded each other, 
but they have retained all their consistency, and, while we yet admit 
their influence, we see that their faults lie rather in imperfect interpre- 
tations than in the rules which they teach. The past twentj'-five years 
cover the period in which Illinois emerged from comparative unimport- 
ance into the full blaze that belongs to the brightest star in the Western 
constellation. 

So long as the current of events is smooth, it is difficult to distinguish 
the men who furnish the controllingr force from those who are mere 
hangers-on. Here, as elsewhere, the noise and hurrah bears usually an 
exact proportion to the emptiness from which it proceeds, while men of 
sagacity and foresight are too busily employed with their plans to think 
of any advantages that may flow from sounding their own praises. 
The blow which the railroad interests of the country received in 1873 
made some startling revelations of this character, stripping off' the 
merely ornamental fixture and showing us the real sinew and brain on 
which the entire system was based. 

Jedaiah F. Alexander, now occupying so important a position in 
the affairs of the Southeastern Railroad, was born in Bond county. 



528 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Illinois, January 4, 1827. Although 3-et a comparatively young man, he 
has had a somewhat eventful and active career, and has filled a measure 
of usefulness that could not well be subtracted from the substantial 
progress of his State. His father was a farmer and surveyor, who moved 
from Cabarrus county, North Carolina, to Tennessee, and from there to 
Illinois at an early day. The young man remained on the farm and 
attended school until he reached the age of twent}-. 

In 1848 he went to Greenville, the county seat of Bond county, and 
there, during the campaign, published a Free-soil paper. This sheet 
was intended onl}' as a campaign paper, and having served its purpose, 
was discontinued. After the election he again attended school during 
the winter, and then, in 1849, became a partner in the office of the 
Greenville yournal. This paper the next year passed under his exclu- 
sive management, and was independent in politics until 1856, when in 
the Presidential campaign of that year it declared for Fremont. In 
1853, while publishing the yournal, he was elected Treasurer and 
Assessor of his county, and held the office for the term of two years 
with honor and satisfaction. In 1855 he entered upon the practice of 
law, a profession b}' no means inconsistent with his duties as editor and 
publisher of a country paper. The period covered by his legal practice 
extended from 1855 to 1863, while he was constantly occupied with 
other pursuits. In 1858 he started the Greenville Advocate, and con- 
tinued its publication up to 1863, when he turned it over to other parties. 
In 1861 he was Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and in 1862 was appointed United States Collector of the 
Tenth Illinois district. The latter office he held for four years, when 
in the fall of 1866, he was elected to the State Legislature. 

In the fall of 1870 Mr. Alexander was elected State Senator, and 
served his full term of two 3'ears, showing himself as an honest and 
capable representative of the people, and one uninfluenced by any 
selfish considerations. 

Both in the House and in the Senate, he was justly regarded as one 
of the best parliamentarians in the bod}-, and at one time was strongh' 
in^ged by his friends to become a candidate for speaker of the House. 
He. however, declined, thinking the honor due to older members. 

When the time came that the people of the tier of counties lying on 
the air line between St. Louis and Terre Haute, Indiana, were anxious 
for a railroad, Mr. Alexander came to the front, secured subscriptions 
and perfected the organization of the Vandalia Railroad, and was the 
first president of the company. For four years, from the spring of 



ALEXANDER, 



529 



1867 to the spring of 1871, he was the president of the company, 
conducting its affairs with marked abiHty and success. 

In 1869, he became interested, with General Winslow, in the con- 
struction of the Southeastern Railway, and under his supervision much 
of the work was done. He was vice-president of that company, at its 
inception, and then when the panic came, in 1872, was elected treasurer. 
The embarrassments brought on all railway organizations, especiallv 
new roads, by the unlooked-for financial revulsion of that year, had 
their effect on the Southeastern in forcing it into the hands of a receiver. 
When the selection came to be made for that important position of trust 
and responsibility, Mr. Alexander, from his knowledge of railway affairs 
and high character, was, with remarkable unanimity, selected for the 
trust. Under his management, the best interests of all parties were 
conserved, and his course dictated no less by strict justice than by an 
enlarged policy. 

This is in part the course of a man who has filled numerous public 
and private positions of influence and honor, and who has been un- 
swerving in his devotion to the simple duties before him. A man of 
powerful, stalwart frame, with a clear, healthy mind, unbiased by the 
passing prejudices of the hour, he is representative of the thoughtful, 
ready, earnest, self-reliant men who have been unostentatiousl}' working- 
out the grand results which we see about us. When seasons of depres- 
sion and embarrassment come, they are the men who stand out strong 
in the face of disaster, and lead to the consummations they at first 
marked out, however beset by difficulties. 

Mr. Alexander has ever pursued with honesty and steadiness of pur- 
pose, the course best calculated to serve those who have committed 
their interests to his management, and has won the highest confidence 
of his associates. 

As an Odd Fellow, he has been selected for the fourth term of two 
years as a representative to the Grand Lodge of the United States : in 
itself a striking proof of clear and unselfish purpose. 

In the transportation problems of the West, which must continue to 
claim some of the best thought that it can command, he will be found 
to bear no unimportant part, and, as the friend of enduring progress, 
will be equal to the demands of the time. 



34 



JUDGE NATHANIEL HOLMES. 



JUDGE NATHANIEL HOLMES is, perhaps, more than any other 
I man in our city, the representative of its scholarly research and 
"^ mental culture. There must grow up in every community, where 
the exactions of civilization make themselves felt, men who by natural 
titness and powers of mind come to devote themselves, in a greater or 
less degree, to the solution of the many abstract problems that super- 
ficially form engaging topics for the masses, and yet include within 
themselves some of the most interesting and abstruse questions of social 
science. Such men are by no means dealing with crude fancies like 
those which the ancient schools were perpetually polishing yet never 
perfecting. The ability to grapple with the unseen and to construct, as 
it were, a congmous whole from isolated fragments, is only acquired 
by exact knowledge upon every one of those great questions which 
agitate the human mind. In his profession, Judge Holmes has attained 
an eminence entirely free from those disturbing influences which too 
often attend upon success ; and as an author, he has attracted the atten- 
tion of all English-speaking people who are familiar with English 
literature, by his work entitled "The Authorship of Shakespeare.'' 

From the platform he has familiarized himself to a large number of 
the thinking American public. Among the most widely known of his. 
lectures are "Providence and Fate," "Shakespeare and Bacon," and 
"x\ntiquity of Man." His performances as an author and a lecturer 
should, however, be regarded rather as the relaxation of the jurist, 
ornamenting and rounding a life the chief occupation of which has ever 
been the study and practice of law. 

He is the descendant of stern and scholarly ancestors. His father 
was Samuel Holmes, a machinist and cotton manufacturer, son of 
Deacon Nathaniel Holmes, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, whose 
ancestors settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, and were Scotch 
Presb3'terians from the north of Ireland. His mother was Mary Annan, 
daughter of the Rev. David Annan, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, 



532 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



who came from Ceres, near Cupar, in Fifeshire, Scotland, and was a 
brother of the Rev. Robert Annan, of Philadelphia and Baltimore. 

Nathaniel Holmes was born at Peterborough, New Hampshire, July 
2, 1814. He was fitted for college at Phillips' Exeter Academy, and 
graduated at Harvard Universit}^ in the class of 1837. ^^^ subsequently 
studied law at the Harvard Law School, was admitted to the Bar in 
Boston in 1839, and came directly to St. Louis in the fall of that year. 
The following spring, in the year 1840, he was admitted to the St. Louis 
Bar. From that time forward, he may be said to have been a part of 
the legal life of our city and State. As our countr}- has grown and 
developed, so, too, his powers have ripened and expanded. His appli- 
cation has been unceasing, his vigor unrelaxing. The determination 
and mental force which he inherited have been imbued with the enlarged 
vitality which our section inspires, until he ma}' properly be claimed as 
the product of the West. He was Circuit Attorney for the count}' of 
St. Louis by appointment of Governor Edwards, in 1846-^7 ; was coun- 
sellor of the Board of St. Louis Public Schools, by election, from 1853 
to 1855, and of the North Missouri Railroad Company from 1862 to 
1865. 

In 1865, he was appoined one of the Judges of the Supreme Court 
of the State of Missouri, by Governor Thos. C. Fletcher, under the 
new constitution, and held that position until 1868, when he accepted 
the chair of Professor of Law in Harvard University, from which he 
retired in 1872. 

Outside ot his professional life, he was corresponding secretary of the 
St. Louis Academy of Science from 1857 to 1868, and from 1873 to the 
present time. He was elected a resident Fellow of the American Acad- 
emy of Arts and Sciences in 1870, and a corresponding member of the 
Imperial Geological Institute of Vienna in 1857. 

Judge Holmes' professional career may be said to be remarkably 
symmetrical, and to have culminated in the professorship at Harvard 
University. Political services or personal favoritism are important to 
obtain it. It is only the reward of commanding ability. Thus, we see 
that he has passed from the position of a prominent and able lawyer to 
a seat on the supreme bench of the State of Missouri, and then to the 
chair of Professor of Law in Harvard University. 

Of his book entitled "The Authorship of Shakespeare," this is not 
the place to speak. It is as the sound jurist, as the close and exhaust- 
ive thinker and the ripe scholar, that Judge Holmes is now and hence- 
forth to be regarded. Whether Shakespeare or Sir Francis Bacon was 



JUDCtE NATHANIEL HOLMES. 533 

the author of our great English classic, may always remain a mooted 
question, but the claims of Bacon are urged by Judge Holmes with a 
perspicuity and cogency that carry conviction to many. A third 
edition of this work, which has met with such varying comment on both 
sides ot' the Atlantic, is about being issued from the press. 



THOMAS CARNEY. 



/TV HE subject of this sketch, now one of the most prosperous and 

JL respected merchants of St. Louis, has passed the greater portion 

of his pubHc Hfe in the neighboring State of Kansas. It was 

in this commonwealth that the principal acts of his life, which have 

helped to make so many pages of Western history, transpired. 

Thomas Carney was born in Delaware county, Ohio, August 20 
1824. On his father's side he is of Irish, and on his lyiother's, of 
German, descent. She was a woman of much public spirit, of superior 
personal qualifications, and was highly esteemed for her religious 
character. 

His father, James Carney, died when Thomas was but four years 
old, leaving his widowed mother with four boys, the eldest being but 
six years old. The bereft family resided upon a small farm, with but 
six acres improved. Delaware county was, at that time, a comparative 
wilderness, and afforded but limited educational advantages, which con- 
sisted of the scanty facilities offered by a log house, where it was 
understood that to read, write and cipher to the double rule of three 
was an ample education. Thomas, however, had the benefit of six 
months' instruction at an academy when he was nineteen years old. 
paying for his board and tuition by working nights, mornings and 
Saturdays. 

At the age of twenty, Thomas, having resolved to become a mer- 
chant, began to look around him for a situation in a store. He first 
called upon the neighboring village merchant, to whom he unfolded his 
views as to his future. The merchant listened to his plans, and 
answered him that he had much better stick to farming, adding "that 
be did not think he had sufficient abilities to become a successful mer- 
chant, and that it was a pity to spoil a good farmer." Nothing daunted. 
Thomas answered indignantl}- that he would yet see the day he could 
buy and sell the petty monarch of the village store. This prediction, 
though uttered by a boy who had not twent3--five dollars in the world, 
has long since been fulfilled. 



536 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Being unsuccessful among his early acquaintances in obtaining the 
employment he so much desired, he visited Columbus. With his bundle 
on his back, he went down one side of High street and up the other, 
calling at all stores, without regard to the nature of their business, 
whether dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, or what not, and almost 
completed the round of the city without obtaining employment. At last 
he engaged with a retail dry goods lirm, at fifty dollars per year and 
board. At the expiration of his contract, he engaged for one year 
longer at one hundred dollars. When that contract had terminated, he 
determined to enter upon a larger field of mercantile life, and accord- 
mgly set out for Cincinnati, carrying with him recommendations of his 
late employers and neighboring merchants. He found employment in 
a large wholesale dry goods house, making a contract for five years, at 
the rate of three hundred dollars for the first year, and one hundred 
dollars advance for each succeeding year. To this contract he bound 
himself in writing. He carried it out faithfully, and to the letter, though 
at various times during the term he was offered three times the salary 
b}' other parties desirous of securing his services. So faithful was he 
in the discharge of his duties, and so strictly did he guard the interests 
of his employers, that at the end of his engagement he was offered, and 
accepted, a quarter interest in the house, and had his name placed at 
the head of the firm. 

He remained in this business four years and a half, exerting all his 
energies and abilities until obliged by ill-health to seek rest and quiet 
for a time. Inactivity for any length of time, however, was incompati- 
ble with his nature. He soon arranged to dispose of his interest in the 
business to his partners, and then he set out to view the great West. In 
his rambles over the Western States and Territories, he was so much 
pleased with Leavenworth, Kansas, that he decided to make it his 
future home. Acting promptly upon this newly conceived idea, he 
returned and set about opening up business in Kansas, which he did in 
the spring of 1858. 

In 1852 Mr. Carney was married to Miss Rebecca A. Canady, in 
Kenton, Hardin county, Ohio, a lady of many superior qualities, and 
whose truly christian character, and philanthropic labors in behalf of the 
poor and unfortunate are deserving of the highest praise. Throughout 
the active public life of Governor Carney, she has exerted a great and 
beneficial influence over his labors. 

Settled in his new home, he gave to his business his accustomed 
attention, prospering even beyond his own hopes or expectations. In 



THOMAS CARNEY. 537 

the fall of 1861, while absent from home he was elected to the Legis- 
lature of his State. This was a most eventful session for the young- 
State of Kansas. Some of the State officers who had been authorized 
to sell State bonds, had transcended their powers, by employing an 
agent, who sold the bonds at a price not authorized by law. 

Mr. Carney took an active part in the investigation which followed^ 
resulting in the impeachment of the Governor, Auditor and Secretary of 
State. The two latter were finally convicted. During the investigation 
which it occasioned, the agent who sold the bonds endeavored to take 
advantage of the fact that the State had no money in its treasury, and 
offered to return the bonds which had been sacrificed, upon the State's 
reimbursing him with their price. Mr. Carney at once arose in his 
place and announced his readiness to loan the State the money to pay 
for all bonds he would return, whereupon the agent withdrew his ofter. 

Mr. Carney's course in the Legislature was such, upon all important 
matters, as to engage the attention of the whole State, and make him 
very popular with all parties. Much against his inclination, he was put 
forward by his friends as a candidate for Governor, to which position 
he was chosen in November 1862. The following January he took the 
oath of office, and entered upon the duties of his office at a time when 
the State was much in need of honest executive ability. This was 
its most critical period. Its treasury was empty, its credit at the lowest 
ebb, and its fair young name tarnished by the necessity that had com- 
pelled the severe action toward some of the State officers the year 
previous. Governor Carney advanced the means out of his own pocket 
to pay the first year's interest on the bonds, thus warding ofi' dishonor, 
saving the credit of the young commonwealth, and helping to place it 
in high financial position, so that when he left the executive chair the 
credit of Kansas was second to no Western State in the Union. Its 
bonds sold readily at nearh' par ; there were ample means in its treasury 
for all its wants, and the people felt the State was standing on a sound 
basis. 

Governor Carney's executive abilities were not less called upon in 
other respects. His administration began and ended during the late 
war. The State was in peril at almost every point, and its settled por- 
tions presented the appearance of one extended camp. Indians infested 
the State- on the south and west, rebels and guerrillas invaded it on the 
east. Nothing short of constant vigilance could prevent invasions and 
the butchering of the people. Settlements at that time were sparse, 
and people were poor ; the State had no mone}' in the treasury to pav 



538 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

for its defense. During this dark period, the Governor organized a 
company of one hundred and fifty mounted men, to patrol the eastern 
border, to warn the inhabitants of approaching danger ; and to pay for 
this service, he advanced the means from his own purse. The regular 
State militia co-operated with these rangers, for whom efficient arms and 
equipments had been provided by the energetic action of the Executive. 

These mounted men kept the field until he was notified by the com- 
mander of the district that he was able to protect the State. They wert 
then discharged, and in three days thereafter Lawrence was in ashes. 
and one hundred and eight}- of its citizens murdered in cold blood b^ 
QuantrelFs band of desperadoes. Meantime the young men of Kansas 
were rushing to other and distant battle-fields. 

No Governor exerted himself more, or contributed more freely of his 
means, for the encouragement of volunteers, than did Governor Carney : 
and in that respect, though operating on a more limited field, he deserves 
to be ranked among the most famous of the "War Governors." 

During the second year of his gubernatorial term, Governor Carney 
was chosen United States Senator b}- a two-thirds vote of both branches 
of the Legislature, but as considerable dissatisfaction was expressed 
by the friends of General J. H. Lane, whom he was to succeed, because 
it was said the proper time for an election had been anticipated 
(although no time had been fixed by the State or nation), he surren- 
dered his credentials and declined a re-election. At the meeting of the 
next Legislature, the following was adopted : 

/'^c'sok't'ii by tJu' House of RepreseiUath'es of the Slate of Kansas, That the thanks of this 
House and of the people of the State of Kansas are justly due to Hon. Thomas Carney, 
late Governor of the State of Kansas, for the honest, faithful and impartial manner in 
which he discharged his executive duties. 

Pesolved, That the Clerk of this House is hereby directed to transmit to ex-Governor 
Carney a certified copy of these resolutions. 

Governor Carne}' then returned to private life, where, however, he 
was not long permitted to remain, for, notwithstanding his positive refusal 
to serve if elected, he was chosen mayor of Leavenworth. At the earnest 
solicitation of many leading citizens, he finally consented to serve. 
Alter his term expired, he was re-elected by an almost unanimous vote. 

Governor Carney retired to private life in 1866, since which time he 
has devoted himself to his private business, and to the encouragement 
of public improvements in the State. He has contributed much of his 
time and means to buildino- railroads in Kansas. No man has done 
more, either in a public or private way, lor the advancement of the State 



THOMAS CARNEY. 539 

and its institutions. Its churches, bridges, school-houses, and its citi- 
zens needing assistance, all bear faithful witness to his liberality and 
bounty. No man is more esteemed than he in Kansas, where his 
unbounded liberality has made him hosts of friends. 

Governor Carne}' has latterly resided in St. Louis, w^here he devotes 
himself entirely to business and the education of his four sons. He is 
resolved to do his part, at least, to make the world the better for his 
having been in it, and he knows of no more certain way of accomplishing 
this than to prepare those who are soon to take his place, so that the\- 
also ma}' act well their parts toward their fellow-men and their God. 

History furnishes few more striking examples than the life of Gover- 
nor Carney of what important results can be accomplished through 
vigor, determination and rectitude. 



WILLIAM G. BARTLE. . 



(AJMONG the citizens of St. Louis who have achieved distinction - 
tL\. entithng tliem to be placed among the representative men of the 
community, there are man}' whose quiet perseverance in a par- 
ticular pursuit, while it excites little notice from the great masses as the 
vears pass by, vet results in elevating them to positions enviable in the 
eyes of their fellow-citizens, and as lasting as well merited. In this 
class may be placed the subject of the present memoir, William G. 
Bartle, who, although not standing conspicuously in the public eye as 
a statesman, a soldier or an orator, has yet, b}' his own individual efforts, 
become one of the leaders of the commercial industry of a great cit}-, 
whose influence has been felt for upward of a quarter of a centur}'. 

Mr. Bartle is of foreign birth and parentage, having been born in 
Cheshire, England, in the year 1827. When but thirteen years old, in 
1840, he came to America with his mother and step-father. Before 
emigrating, young Bartle had attended St. Mary's Academy at Stack- 
port, Cheshire, England, where he received the rudiments of a sound 
English education. His mother and step-father wended their way directly 
to St. Louis, where the family settled down. 

William commenced business with his step-father, who was a butcher, 
and whose place of business was at the North Market, on Broadway. In 
this connection he remained until 1848, and became quite conversant 
with the stock business of the Western country, which had already 
grown to gigantic proportions, and has become one of the important 
branches of trade of the Mississippi Valley. 

With a view of extending the facilities of carrying on this trade, 
in 1849 Mr. Bartle commenced to build the Bellevue Stock Yards 
in the western portion of the city, now known as the Pacific Yards, and 
befjan buvinfj cattle from the well known Christian Hays, the largest 
operator of the day, in his line, and the most extensive stock dealer the 
Western country ever saw : — for years Mr. Hays ruled the entire 
Southern market, and so large and extensive were his dealings that no 
other operator was known in Memphis and New Orleans but himself. 



54' 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



In this capacity he continued until 1852, when Mr. Hays died of 
cholera, and Mr. Bartle, in connection with Mr. Duncan S. Carter, 
then conducted it under the name of Hays, Carter & Co. This busi- 
ness continued in a most flourishing condition until 1863. 

In the interval, the firm had invested largely in steamboat stock, and 
was interested in some of the most important river enterprises of the 
time. They owned a large amount of the stock of the x\tlantic and 
Mississippi Steamship Line. 

During the war Mr. Bartle held a prominent position in the stock 
market of the West, in supplying the Government with cattle. In 1861 
he received and issued 34,000 horses for the Government, the largest 
single transaction of the kind during the conflict. He also purchased 
the cattle for Banks' arm3% and for Sherman's before he started for 
Georgia. His operations in the cattle and stock market during these 
vears were of the most stupendous magnitude and on the largest scale. 
His long experience in the business, his well known and superior judg- 
ment, his ability to classify, average and handle stock, made him a man 
of mark in the market, and one of inestimable value to such houses as 
that of Henry Ames & Co., Francis Whittaker & Sons, and John J. 
Roe, all of whom were anxious, at an}'^ price, to secure his services. 

In 1863 the firm of Hays, Carter & Co., sold out their butchering- 
establishment, but continued to hold largely in steamboat stock. 

In 1866 Mr. Bartle took command of the steamer Ned Tracy, ot' 
which he was part owner ; and in 1867 he purchased the Mountaineer, 
and commanded her in the Fort Benton trade until 1869. In the mean- 
time, and during the winter season, when the river trade was closed, he 
was the principal purchaser for Henry Ames & Co., Whittaker & Sons, 
and John J. Roe. 

In 1869 Mr. Bartle commenced to ship cattle to New York and Phila- 
delphia, which he did on a large scale. After the death of Mr. Roe in 
1870, Mr. Bartle became a partner in the firm of John J. Roe & Co., 
in connection with Mr. John G. Copelin, Mr. Roe's son-in-law, and 
others. In the fall of 1871, this partnership was dissolved, and the 
business continued by Mr. Bartle, William Hamilton and H. D. Louder- 
man. This firm continued until 1873, when it was dissolved also — Mr. 
Bartle and Mr. Hamilton continuing the business under the style of 
Hamilton & Bartle, which exists to the present day, and is one of the 
largest and most successful firms of St. Louis. 

Mr. Bartle was twice married, his last wife being Mary C, daughter 
of Thomas Brooks, Esq., a wealthy gentleman of St. Louis county. In 



WILLIAM G. BARTLE 



543 



1862, accompanied by his mother and two daughters, he went to 
Europe, visiting the great exposition at London, and other points of 
interest in England. It was his intention to make an extended tour of 
the Continent, but receiving news of the fall of New^ Orleans and 
Memphis, and supposing the river free once more to trade, he immedi- 
ately returned. 

His mother, Mrs. Lucy Daniels, died on the 9th of February 1875, in 
Cooper county, Missouri, where she had resided since 1867. She was 
buried from Christ's Church, St. Louis, and was followed to her last 
resting-place b}' a large concourse of friends and acquaintances, to 
whom her many Christian virtues had endeared her. She was a woman 
of notable peculiarities, which made her a paragon among her sex ; 
favored with the most amiable disposition set in all the virtues, she pos- 
sessed a wonderful executive ability, and those who remember her 
remarkable success in superintending and conducting the business of 
the Bellevue House in its palm}- days, will agree with us in this tribute 
to her superior endowments. The Rev. Mr. Schuyler, of whose church 
(Christ's Episcopal) she was a communicant, speaking of her, said: 
" She was one of those truly good women — those exemplars of Christian 
character — of whose earnestness and sincerity there could be no doubt. 
Her kindly face was the very expression of her heart, which was a well- 
spring of benevolence and charity. No one in need ever appealed to 
her in vain, nor was her aid solicited for the furtherance of any worth^' 
object without meeting with a sympathetic and generous response."" 
For twenty years Mrs. Daniels was a patron and contributor to the 
Orphans' Home, in which she took an unflagging interest to the last. 
When one possessed of these high moral attributes and purity of life 
passes away, it is a melancholy pleasure to recur to these virtues, and 
she whom they adorn, that they ma}'. serve to shape the walks of those 
who would live as she lived, and die with the blissful assurances of the 
happy future which such a beautiful life must bring. 

In the private walks of life, Mr. Bartle shines not less than in his 
transactions with the public. A man of unbounded generosity, gentle 
and genial in his nature, he has gathered around him a circle of 
admiring friends who feel honored by his friendship and proud of his 
success in life. Possessed of ample fortune, which he uses for the 
noblest objects, successful in all his business undertakings, and blessed 
and adored by a happy and contented family, Mr. Bartle is truly a 
man to be envied. 



MATTHEAV MOODY. 



'H Prominent among the business men of St. Louis who claim 
_L Ireland as a native place, is the man whose name heads this 
interesting sketch. 

Matthew^ Moody was born in the year 1816, in the County Tyrone, 
Ireland. Like many other men of sterling business qualifications, his 
earl}- years were spent upon a farm. His father, who was quite an 
extensive farmer of that section of the country, possessed the highest 
regard for education, and spared no pains to bestow upon his family 
the very best instruction his means and the educational facilities of the 
country he lived in would permit. Young Mood}' was first sent to a 
country school, and for four years afterwards to what is known in 
Ireland as a boys" seminary, where the youth of the country secure 
insti-uction in the higher branches of English and the classics. 

In 1 83 1 he left his native land for a home in the Western world, and 
lived for two years in Philadelphia. But the City of Brotherly Love 
did not offer many attractions to young Moody, who soon removed to 
Lexington, Kentucky, where he engaged in a wholesale grocery store. 
This employment lasted for two years, when, meeting with another 
young man from Ireland anxious to improve his condition, and enter 
business for himself, the two joined fortunes, and, purchasing a stock, 
removed to Beardstown, Illinois. 

The business under the partnership continued in a flourishing con- 
dition for very nearly three years, when Mr. Moody resolved to seek 
other and wider fields for enterprise and the exercise of his business 
capacity. With this intention, he sold out his interest in the Beards- 
town business, and started South on a trading expedition, which lasted 
several months. In search of fortune he visited St. Louis. In those 
da}S the transportation of the West was chiefly conducted by water ; 
railroads had not then succeeded in revolutionizing the carrying trade 
as they have since done. Mr. Moody resolved to turn his attention to 
steamboating, and entered as a clerk in the Illinois River trade. This 
occupation lasted one year, when he entered the mercantile house of 
Davis, Tilden & Richards. 
35 



546 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Here his strict attention to business, and his manly and upright bear- 
ing, soon won for him the esteem and confidence of his emplo3'ers to 
such a degree, that when, four 3'ears afterward, the tirm determined 
upon opening up a retail branch of their business on Broadway, Mr. 
Moody was one of the parties chosen to manage it. He continued at 
this business four years, when the firm of Smith & Moody purchased 
the business of which they were merely the managers, though all along 
it had been ostensibly their own. After the expiration of three years, 
he retired from this concern and became a partner in the old firm — now 
the well-known house of Samuel C. Davis & Co. 

In 1855 he removed to Chicago, to establish and conduct a branch 
house organized there under the style of Davis, Moody & Co. He 
remained in Chicago until 1859, '^vhen, having disposed of his interest 
in the business of the firm, he returned to St. Louis, and for about one 
year was in the employment of Robert Campbell. He then purchased 
an interest in the mercantile house of Singleton & Co., and thus laid 
the foundation of the present flourishing concern of Moody, Michel 
& Co., of which Mr. Moody in the senior partner. 

During the many years in which he has been engaged in trade, 
Mr. Mood}^ has enjoyed the reputation of an attentive, prudent and 
energetic business man, and his record is unstained by a single question- 
able transaction. He is full of public spirit, and never fails to take a 
prominent part in all matters and things tending to advance the com- 
mercial growth of St. Louis. 



THEODORE LAVEILLE. 



THEODORE LAVEILLE is a representative of that business spirit 
and enterprise which has made travel in the West speedy and 
pleasurable. Although identified with almost every one of the 
leading projects to which our citizens have lent their capital and assist- 
ance, he has yet given his individual efforts to schemes connected with 
freighting and traveling. He is thoroughly a St. Louisian, by birth, 
education, identity of interest, and hope and pride in his native cit\'. 
His father was an architect and builder here, and, as his name would 
indicate, of French extraction. Theodore was born here August 3, 
1822, and received a liberal education, which embraced two years in 
St. Charles College and two years in the St. Louis University. 

About 1841, when he was nineteen years of age, the river offered the 
most attractive and lucrative field, and, in fact, enlisted in its service 
the very flower of Western youth. After some eight months in an 
insurance office, he became clerk of a steamboat engaged in the Upper 
Mississippi trade. That he was fitted for the business, and the business 
for him, would seem to be sufficiently indicated by his remaining in it 
for a period of twenty years. During that time he was on the Upper 
Mississippi, the Illinois, the Missouri, and, for the last eight years of it, 
on the Lower Mississippi. His active life on the river closed with the 
"Planet," in 1861, when he settled in St. Louis, and took charge of the 
Eagle Warehouse. This business engrossed his time and attention 
until the year 1864, when he sold out. After remaining out of business 
a few months, he accepted the position of secretary of that mammoth 
organization, the Atlantic and Mississippi Steamship. Company. He 
resigned this office in September 1865, in order to become a member 
of the partnership of Laveille, Warner & Co., which was organized 
for the purpose of taking charge of and conducting, the "Southern 
Hotel." The lease, which had been originally made to Daniel Able, 
was transferred to the new firm, and the most palatial hotel in the 
Valley of the Mississippi was inaugurated under the happiest auspices. 
This event in the history of St. Louis made a deep impression all over 



^^8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the country, and furnished her citizens with a proper subject for con- 
gratulation and pride. It is indeed one of the noblest edifices of the 
West. Its lofty corridors have echoed to most of the grace, the fashion 
and the talent that, for the ten years since its opening, has visited the 
citv. Upon its register may be found the names of nearh' all the 
celebrities of America, as well as man}- from foreign lands. The hope 
and pride with which its completion was regarded, have not wavered, 
or diminished in the least, nor is it probable that they will, while the 
subject of this sketch remains at the head of the firm which has 
charge of it. 

But few progressive enterprises have originated in St. Louis without 
the countenance and material aid of Mr. Laveille. He has never failed 
to subscribe liberally, when circumstances admitted and his judgment 
approved, to an}- enterprise intended to advance the interests and pro- 
mote the growth of the citv. The St. Louis elevator, which was the 
first organized project for handling grain, at this point, in bulk, though 
derided bv the old fogies, found in him an active working friend, and a 
subscriber to twenty thousand dollars of its capital stock. He took 
three hundred shares in the Tower Grove Street Railroad Company, and 
two hundred shares in the Boatmen's Insurance Compan}'. The books 
of most of the banks will show his name among the most liberal sub- 
scribers to their original stock. 

In 1850, he made the trip to California across the plains. He 
remained there, how^ever, but a few months, w^hen he returned by w^a}' 
of the Isthmus of Panama. In 1857 he married, and became the 
father of two children, only one of whom, a daughter, is now living. 
He is an unobtrusive, liberal, warm-hearted man, who possesses, in an 
unusual degree, the qualities that make friends, and, in an equal 
degree, the quafities that keep them. 



STILSON HUTCHINS. 



"V EW ENGLAND produces two types of men as dissimilar in many 
\ respects as the Scottish Lowlander and Highlander. The breadth 
of divergence depends soleh' upon the social individuality of the 
one type as contradistinguished from the other. Nationally they are 
the same — the vigorous development of the genus American dominating 
every characteristic of race that might appear erratic ; but outside of 
and beyond the absolute organic necessit}- of birthright and blood, the 
elements that enter into the two productions of the same soil and keep 
them forever apart without being for a moment estranged, re-assert 
themselves and maintain in full force and effect the no doubt wise 
economy which insisted in the first place upon the dual development. 

The first type is composed of the Puritan — the stern, censorious, 
circumspect man — who walks by the law, and who retains, even amid 
the warmer colors and the softer hues of this later and fuller life, much 
of the rugged walk and talk of an iron ancestry. His ways are not the 
ways of graciousness and condonement. Having once set his foot in 
the pathway of a belief, he will follow it to the end of the journev, 
though at the end is the peril of a precipice and a sheer fall of a thou- 
sand feet. Neither is he a man of allowances and after-considerations. 
What is, is ; what might be, or could have been, enters not into the 
economy of his summing up. Narrow of vision often in the scanning 
of a creed or the analysis of a platform : selfish beyond the point of 
understanding conservatism in its most cosmopolitan shape ; over-prone 
to dogmatic self-assertion, and over-zealous in the enunciation of a con- 
genial formula or a speculative theory : rarel}^ possessed of adaptabilit^', 
and adverse, with scarcely an exception, to the study of human nature, 
and the delicate and intricate huvs of association and equilibrium, the 
New Englander of the first class goes through the world — as perhaps he 
has need to go because of his mental organization — a harsh, repellant 
man, thoroughly honest if he is not sometimes too thoroughly fanatical. 
and very frequently both honest and fanatical. 



S50 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



The second tvpe is made up of men of immense energy and immense 
adaptability. Vitality and versatility in the development of their domi- 
nating traits, are synonymous terms. With them life is real, tangible, 
practical ; something to be entered into and enjoyed ; to be striven w^ith 
and mastered : to be so familiarized and interpreted as to keep at least 
its sunshine even with its shadow^, and its blessings above and beyond 
its counterbalancing power to inflict punishment and pain. While very 
little is accepted as necessarily inevitable or unchangeably true, a 
great deal is imagined. To all they allow the utmost latitude of love 
and hate ; for themselves they onl}' stipulate that the same latitude shall 
be allowed in return. Even in adversit}- they are jealous of the equi- 
librium of events, and hold on as tenaciousl}' to the last straw as to the 
rights which control the acreage of an immense estate. Brought face 
to fiice often with their last dollar, the end of their resources is never 
admitted bv anv recognition they give to it. Equal to either extreme of 
fortune: conservative, confiding, and yet rarely circumspect; taking a 
great deal of human nature for granted, and making no little allowance 
for mortal infirmity and short-coming ; quick to recover from injuries, 
and vet indifferent to the complications which produced them ; self- 
reHant. bold in pursuit, generous without ostentation, and doing many 
justifiable things from inclination rather than impulse ; when the final 
summing up is had, the credit side is much larger in charities and suc- 
cesses than the debit in failures and useless regrets. 

To this second class of New England men belongs Stilsox Hutchins. 
the subject of this sketch. He was born at Whitefield, Coos county. 
New Hampshire, on the 14th da}' of November 1838. Whitefield is a 
beautiful hamlet at the base of the White Mountains, while the moun- 
tains themselves, like the sea, serve to harden the fibre of all who come 
in contact with them, and give to the character of each of their repre- 
sentative ofispring much of the power and pathos which belong to 
nature in its isolation and immensity. 

The father of Stilson Hutchins died before his only son was born. 
He was a Democratic politician of considerable prominence for one so 
young, and enjoyed the friendship and esteem of such men as Franklin 
Pierce, Levi Woodbur}', Isaac Hill, and man}- others who, equally with 
these, were distinguished in the public affairs of New England and the 
nation. 

Stilson Hutchins was educated in the public schools of Boston. In 
the early freshness of his youth, and when life was fullest of its most 
ardent and solacing aspirations, he formed that attachment for this 



STILSON HUTCH INS. 55 1 

system of instruction, which has colored to a recognized degree the 
exertions of his official life, and made him ^ar cxccllcucc the Demo- 
cratic champion of the public school system of Missouri. 

From the high school he went to Cambridge, to enter upon a colle- 
giate course at Harvard. He did not graduate, however. His step- 
father, in 1855, removed to Northern Iowa, and Hutchins, dropping his 
books, entered at once upon the practical realities of a fresh Western 
life. It was the era of transitions. Pioneers camping in the wilder- 
ness for a few days, went from their detached tents in a clearing to 
their houses in a town. The soil of the West was a virgin soil then, 
and it produced giants. Stalwart, God-fearing, patriotic men cast in 
their fortunes with the new land, and reared a generation of children 
who knew how to labor and to wait. 

While yet a student, and when onl}^ sixteen years of age, young 
Hutchins had become a regular contributor to the Boston Post, the 
Boston Herald, and numerous other journals. A year later, after his 
removal to North Iowa, he commenced the publication of the IVorth 
Jozvaii, an influential Democratic newspaper, in Mitchell county. Such 
was the reputation he established in connection with the JVortk lowan. 
and so marked the abilit}- shown in its management, that he was solici- 
ted in 1859 ^^ take control of the leading Democratic paper in the State, 
the you ma I, published at Des Moines. This he did, publishing for 
nearly three years an undeviating States Rights journal, until compelled 
by the hostile feelings engendered by the war, to either change its poli- 
tics or dispose of it. He preferred the latter alternative, and disposed 
of a lucrative business at a considerable pecuniary sacrifice. A 3'ear 
later, invited thereto by the leading Democrats of the State, he assumed 
control of the Dubuque Herald, then, as now, the oldest, the most 
influential, and the best Democratic newspaper in Iowa. At that time 
the war was in its most virulent and bitterly proscriptive epoch, and 
when, to fulfill what he considered to be his duty to the party, required 
the exercise on the part of Hutchins of unceasing vigilance and un- 
daunted courage. Threatened, assaulted, discriminated against socially, 
commercialh', and officially, he yet remained defiantly at his post, and 
made such a steadfast and unceasing battle for the right, that his name 
became a synonym for patriotic endurance, and his newspaper a watch- 
word for States Rights and individual liberty. 

In 1865, suffering severely in health from unceasing application to 
business, he relinquished the management of the Herald, and, after a 
year's recuperation, in connection with John Hodnett and D. A. 



552 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mahoney, started the Sf. Louis Daily Times, the paper of which he 
is now the manager, editor, and largest proprietor. 

The venture was a serious one. JournaHsm in St. Louis had gradually 
got into grooves. What really was only meant in the light of an inno\a- 
tion, was looked upon as an assault upon cherished customs, the equity 
of vested rights, and the habits and requirements of thought and 
expression which, to be correct, had only need to become both imbecile 
and venerable. The habits and withes of a S3'stem that first began in a 
patriarchal age, accommodated themselves slowly to the age of cosmo- 
politanism, while, in order to secure even a tolerable hearing before a 
people not over-prone to change or experiment, it was necessar3'to haxe 
both patience and money. Hutchins had the first, but not the last. He 
came to St. Louis almost penniless, Ibund a few good friends who had 
faith in his energy and pluck, gathered together with his partners less 
than three thousand dollars, and entered at once with all the natural 
ardor and vehemence of a naturally ardent and vehement youth, into a 
struggle which had but these on the one side, and on the other — and 
certainly in an attitude of hostilit}* — age, the caste of society, the 
intense homogeneity of social habits and customs, and ample capital. 

The Democratic party at that time, in Missouri, was hopelessh' and 
helplessly proscribed. Without leadership, with no organ in St. Louis 
reliable longer than a personal whim or fancy lasted, disfranchised, and 
wholly deprived of office, it needed something in the shape of a rallying 
point where political sentiment, at least, might find expression, and 
public indignation an adequate escape-pipe. To this extent, and to this 
extent alone, were circumstances at all favorable to the establishment 
of a Democratic daily newspaper in the great metropolis of the State. 
Energy, intellect and audacit}- were to supply the place of money — an 
experiment, by the way, which is especially disastrous in a newspaper 
point of view, but which, in this instance, was to prove an exception to 
the great bulk and average of Western journalism. And the struggle 
made to win the fight in St. Louis furnishes, to some extent, the ke}' to 
a character not always plain to those who assume to understand it best^ 
and which is most generally an enigma to all of those who associate a 
man with his newspaper, and suit themselves in the summing up accord- 
ingl}^ as they are influenced or impressed by what appears in its editorial 
columns. 

Stilson Hutchins is one of those practical workers and thinkers in 
life who believes that the revolution which does not advance retreats. 
His mind, through the stern requirements of early po\'erty and the hard 



STIL SON HUT CHINS. 55^^ 

necessities of rigid application, has lost much of that sensitiveness which 
rarely survives the remembrance of precocious punishments. In its 
place has come a laudable ambition which, like fire in the veins of the 
earth, is always detected in some crevice of man's destiny, lighting up> 
in a single and ardent blaze, all of his passions. By constant exercise, 
he has given this ambitious intellect bone and muscle, so that when the 
elements which were to destroy him be^^an to concentrate, they found a 
man who could endure as well as do. Of varied literar}- accomplish- 
ments, his resources are manifold ; while his celerity of action and 
adaptability of purpose in moments of extreme peril to any cause which, 
as a legislator, he is officially interested in, or to any crisis in moment- 
ous business relationships which involve the loss or gain of large sums- 
of money, prove that as a cavalry soldier he would have been as brilliant 
as effective, and that as a civilian he is always equal to either extreme of 
fortune — the most difficult lesson to learn in life. 

In building up his newspaper in St. Louis, and in getting it just bareh' 
to the top of the hill, where the dead strain would be relaxed a little» 
and the dead pull lightened, he showed that one protean element of 
adaptability in an aspect almost superhuman. He was at once editor, 
business man, pressman, solicitor, reporter and politician. He wa-ote 
with equal facility, and with the same rapidity, lucidity and dispatch,, 
the editorial that dealt with the fundamental truth of the party's organ- 
ization, and the advertisement which described a line of fancy goods* 
or extolled an assortment of groceries. For six months, while the 
struggle was desperate and uncertain, he turned the editorial room into 
a sleeping room at night, and devoured a meal when he could. He 
knew from the first wdiere the opposition would mass the flower of their 
forces, to give him battle and destroy him, and his energies were 
aroused incessantly to continued efforts to prevent the overthrow. He 
knew that his means were scant and uncertain. He knew that the 
prestige of success was wanting — that kind of success which, with the 
St. Louis of 1866, came from long residence, the slow accumulation of 
3^ears and years, and the gradual increase of property and prosperity, 
rather by natural concentration and economy than through energetic 
handling and competition. He knew that his newspaper had to be 
made to live a year as a bare guarantee of good faith, and after that the 
people would see. He w'as determined that it should live a 3'ear. 
Hence the long, patient, unswerving, uncheered, and, to a certain 
extent, unproductive vigil of a twelvemonth. He hud made up his 
mind to succeed, and of course it had become necessar}- to multiply 



554 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

himself. He literal!}' wrote as he ran. Here and there about the State, 
some ringing words to the Democrac}' — thrown off in moments ot" 
severer despondenc}' or more impenetrable gloom than usually came to 
him — found lodgment and championship. While he was laboring to 
win the attention of the party, he was also getting fast hold upon its 
respect. Passion is wanting to the defensive, and Hutchins fought then 
as he has always fought since, on the aggressive. He would have been 
wrecked at times, it may be, but for the fact that in the midst of human 
■crises, something stronger even than the men who appear to guide, 
comes to the rescue — the will of the event itself. The Tiuies suc- 
ceeded, and was everywhere recognized as one of the most valuable 
newspapers in the Mississippi Valley. 

The fight was made and won, but not without cost. The arduous 
labors severely strained an unusually strong ph3^sique, and made 
rest and recuperation an absolute necessity. In July 1872, he sold his 
remaining interest to his partners for $100,000, and six months latei- 
became a candidate for the Legislature from the Sixth Representative 
District of St. Louis, the wealthiest and most populous district in the 
cit}'. As was to have been expected, he encountered and overcame a 
tremendous opposition. Seven years of aggressive newspaper life — 
seven 3'ears that embraced a period of transition wherein a stronglv 
entrenched political despotism had to be crushed, and domineering 
proscriptions assaulted and destroyed — left behind them, as was natural, 
man}' bitter enmities, and not a few wounds that refused to be healed. 
In all the long struggle, however — and when by conservatism the work 
w'ould have been easier, and the burden and the heat of the day less 
difficult to have been borne — Hutchins chose invariably the part of the 
savage aggressor, turning neither to the one side for conciliation nor to 
the other for individual benefit or aggrandizement. 

In politics, nature made him a partisan, with an utter lack of rever- 
ence in his composition for his opponents ; having its rough, harsh edges 
rounded somewhat and made more endurable by an habitual love of fair 
play which came from the remembrances of his own forlorn struggle. 
and a great good humor that rose superior to all malice while being at 
the same time coldly critical and exacting. He had been thoroughh- 
schooled as a journalist in that best of all schools, practical experience, 
but as the canvasser and controller of a political election concerning 
himself alone and his own immediate advancement, he knew absolutely 
next to nothing. Hostility, however, hardened him at once into a 
thorough campaigner. In a night he became, as it were, a veteran. 



STILSON HUTCHINS. 555 

As the battle deepened and became swift and sharp, tactics came to 
him as an inspiration, and a tirelessness and sleeplessness of energy and 
persev^erance that nothing could withstand. The same qualities that in 
his newspaper connection had made him unforgiving enemies, made him 
also singularly devoted and abiding friends. His management very soon 
became to be regarded as a masterpiece of strategy. The elements of 
opposition arrayed against him were formidable because they were 
fanatical. Youth, enterprise, the conscientious desire to accomplish 
practical good for his constituents, and an innate hatred of shams and 
frauds, counted against him heavily in the scale where infirmities and 
imbecilities were to do the weighing and reckoning up. He triumphed 
over everything, however, and obtained a vote as large as it w^as grati- 
fying to him as a man, and complimentar}' to him as a Democrat. 
Satisfied with an indorsement at once so emphatic and pronounced, he 
made scarcel}' any efibrt at all for the Speakership, which was pressed 
upon him from various portions of the State. Many from afar, who 
had watched with more than an attentive interest the various phases of 
a struggle which brought into such bold relief the wonderful resources 
of a trained and powerful intellect, were desirous of expressing their 
appreciation in some more substantial manner than through the ordinary 
forms of well-meant congratulations, and commenced, some little time 
before the Legislature assembled, to organize in Hutchins' interest for 
the Speakership. While being very grateful, he remained for a con- 
siderable period undecided as to his own inclinations in the matter, and 
never once got his own consent to make an^-thing like a concerted efibrt 
for the position. 

On the floor of the House he took rank instantly as a formidable 
debater ; as one clear, luminous and vigorous in argument — as one who 
understood thoroughly the details of legislation, and who spared neither 
time, labor nor patient research into the utilities of laws and the merits 
or demerits of general propositions. A senatorial race of considerable 
excitement and importance lent its special interest to the more general 
interest of the regular session, and afforded a fine field for parliament- 
ary j^w ^55^ and scientific political management. In one crisis of the 
battle, leadership of the ver}' highest order was demanded, and by 
consent Mr. Hutchins assumed control of the Democratic forces. First, 
he laid down the firm law that the claims of the party were paramount 
to everything else : individuals were as mere factors in a sum the total 
of which was Democratic unity and principle, and whatever the 
decision of the caucus, the caucus was omnipotent. Onh' good came 



:;56 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

out of the conflict, and for the balance of the session the high standard 
erected at the beginning was scrupulously lived up to and preserved. 

In June 1873, Mr. Hutchins bought a controlling interest in the 
S/. Louis Evening Dispatch. Having been raised to journalism, as it 
were, and having drank deep of that spring whose waters infatuate 
beyond all the power of the future to cure or disenchant, he could not 
have resisted, if he had tried, the unappeasable and occult spirit which 
bade him get back into a newspaper. 

When he took control of the Dispatch it was a society arrangement, 
confined in circulation strictly to the corporation of St. Louis. Making- 
no pretensions to politics, its existence, in a Democratic point of view, 
was unknown to the State. At a bound, and as if under the control of 
some supernatural agency, it went from the extreme rear to the far 
front, leading the Democracy of Missouri in a campaign remarkable for 
the complications sought to be connected with it, and for the complete 
triumph, in the end, of those principles which underlie and constitute 
the indestructible basis of States' Rights Democracy. An unprecedented 
increase in circulation showed how acceptable to the people were the 
clear, ringing, unmistakable utterances of this ardent worker and 
writer in the ranks of the orgfanization. These facts are stated mereh' 
to show how great Mr. Hutchins' capabilities are in a journalistic point 
of view, and how naturally he assumes the position of a leader in those 
crises in politics which require the exercise of immense energy, versa- 
tility, high courage, and patriotic self-abnegation and devotion. 

While the campaign in the State was at its height, and at the ver}' time 
when the hottest fire of the whole struggle was being poured forth 
evening after evening against the entire length of the enemy's line, a 
call of extraordinary voice and volume was made upon Mr. Hutchins to 
become again a candidate for the Legislature in the Sixth District. 
Especially were the commercial interests anxious for its acceptance. 
Having a lively remembrance of his abilit}' and usefulness in a former 
General Assemblv, the same element which was so prominent in his 
support before, rallied again as a unit to secure his further services. 
Consequent upon his favorable response to the extraordinary call made 
upon him — extraordinary for the number of names of prominent men 
signed to it, for the wealth, intelligence and influence that it represented, 
and for the high compliments paid to the ability and integrity of the 
recipient — a campaign of magnified virulence and misrepresentation fol- 
lowed. It became necessar}', because of the tremendous eflbrts of the 
opposition, for Mr. Hutchins to obtain two elections — one at the polls 



STILSON HUTCmXS 



:):•/ 



when the selection of a full ticket was being made in the primaries, and 
one again at the polls when the regular election came off in November. 
In addition to these two labors put upon him, he had two others that he 
put upon himself — the supreme editorial management of a newspaper 
leading the attacking columns of Democrac}^ and an extensive individ- 
ual canvass for the general good of the party throughout the State. 
Invited by as many as lifty counties to make speeches in behalf of their 
local tickets, and pressed earnestly by the Democratic Executive Com- 
mittee of Missouri to lend his efforts in behalf of a common cause, he 
accepted as many as a dozen and more invitations, and delivered 
speeches notable for their appropriateness and effectiveness, in St. 
Joseph, Kansas City, Independence, Cape Girardeau, Hannibal, Hunts- 
ville and Moberly, removing prejudices, and making friends ever}-- 
where, and winning golden opinions from evervbod}'. Fighting his 
own battles at home, and the battles of the party outside of the city ; 
making his newspaper the organ of the Democracy, because of the 
vigor and purity of the doctrines taught ; counselling, organizing and 
disciplining : never wearied under the pressure that w^as the heaviest, 
nor forced backward a hand's breadth when the fire was the fiercest 
and hottest ; equal to every emergency, and superior to every assailant ; 
asking no quarter, and certainly giving none ; pressed many times to the 
girth, yet alw^ays ahead : self-reliant, infinite in resource, and master 
always of the situation ; perfectly serene under fire, and unsurpassed 
for coolness in danger, and sagacity amid environment, the mental and 
physical qualities exhibited by Hutchins in the campaign of 1874, 
stamped him as a man of genius in the eyes of the whole State, 
extended his influence in ever}- direction, and created for him an 
immense following in the ranks of the young Democrats of Missouri, 
who naturally admire energy and dash, and who possess at all times 
and under all circumstances that inherent love of fair play which came 
intact from a patriotic and liberty-loving ancestry. Indeed, Hutchins* 
election from the first passed beyond the confines of the Sixth ward, 
and soon encompassed Missouri. From everv county he received words 
of comfort and encouragfement. In manv instances offers of more 
material assistance were made. When his success was assured, and it 
was no longer a question of ballot-box rifling, or palpable lying or 
fraud, the shout of congratulation that went up from his friends in every 
direction, told b}' its volume the nature of the enthusiasm he had 
aroused, and was, beyond all calculation, the most precious token of 
.appreciation to him that possiblv could have been offered. He remem- 



^i^8 B I O G R A P H I C A L S K E T C H E S . 

bered it while representing his own immediate constituents in the 
Twenty-eighth General Assembly, and made the honor and integrity of 
the State in a commercial point of view, so manifest to all, that a law was 
passed which carried its credit up to the very highest point, and saved 
the Democratic party from a reflection that would have been positively 
hurtful to it in a political and national point of view, to say nothing of 
the severer injuries it would have inflicted upon the material interests of 
the people themselves. 

Perhaps the speech made in favor of the flnancial policy which finally 
prevailed, was the best speech Mr. Hutchins ever made in his life ; 
certainly it has received the greatest amount of praise. And on this 
question of the maturing indebtedness of Missouri, too much credit can 
not be awarded to him for his position. Weighed down by enormous 
local burdens, which to a large extent were imposed upon them through 
the process of proscription, it followed as a matter of course that when 
such created indebtedness began to fall due, the people, through their 
representatives, should make some effort at least, and take some steps 
in the direction, not of repudiation as was claimed b}^ some, but of the 
strict carrying out of the law under which all that portion of the State 
debt known as the railroad debt was created. Technically, the law 
gave the State an indefinite length of time in which to pay off' the bonds 
after they had matured ; but as the State had really disposed of the 
property pledged as security for the bonds which comprised the obliga- 
tion, it was in honor bound to deal justly and liiDcrally by the creditors. 
Early taking this view, though opposed by some of the ablest men in 
the Legislature, Mr. Hutchins led the party who proposed to stand by 
the honor and the credit of Missouri ; and from a minority at first, and 
a rather desponding one at that, he made of it an effective majority by 
the sheer weight of his indefatigable energy, his sleepless persistence, 
his subtle power of attack and defense, a personal magnetism that 
made recruits to his ideas in the ranks of the opposition, and by one of 
the most powerful speeches ever listened to, or delivered in a repre- 
sentative body. 

After his complete triumph in the legislative election in his own district, 
a concerted movement was made in various portions of the State in favor 
of Mr. Hutchins for the United States Senate. He was appealed to by 
many able and influential men to allow his name to be used in connec- 
tion with the position, but to all he invariably returned a negative reply. 
While he might not have been elected, the vote cast for him in the 
Legislature would certainly have been large and highly complimentary^ 



STIL SON HUTCH INS. * 559 

In summing up tinally the elements which go to constitute the many- 
sided character of a man remarkable in most things, they are tbund to 
be not easy of analysis. He has to be viewed more as connected with 
some particular development — the offspring of some particular quality 
of the intellect — than as the rounded fulfillment of an intellectual char- 
acter that is the same under all circumstances and in every condition of 
pressure or necessity. Editor, legislator, politician and man of the 
world, either in energetic action or absolute repose, the angle of 
analytical vision can only be made to encompass a single accomplish- 
ment at a time. Hutchins the legislator, is not Hutchins the politician ; 
nor is Hutchins the editor, the Hutchins of society and the street. 

As a newspaper man, he seems to be idle at times, but he is always 
busy. He requires no exposure or exhaustive service of a subordinate 
that he will not perform himself. He is very exacting, but he is also 
very just. His style as a writer is clear, luminous, incisive, and tinged 
just to the point of recognition with an irony or a sarcasm that leaves 
wounds after it, and cuts to hurt. His rapidity and fecundity in compo- 
sition are almost abnormal. He possesses in an eminent degree the 
power of contraction and absorption, that power which is more of a gift 
than an acquisition, and which enables him to do two or three things at 
once and do them all well. As an example, the celebrated Broadhead 
letter — a letter addressed to Colonel James O. Broadhead, of St. Louis, 
in reply to one written by him on the political situation — was thrown off 
in an hour and while no less than five persons w^ere engaged in an ani- 
mated conversation, the author himself taking the lead and doing more 
than his share of the talking. This letter went over the State almost on 
wings, was copied in as many as a hundred Democratic newspapers, 
and was pronounced by everybody to be a masterpiece of dispassionate 
logic and considerate criticism. 

Somewhat whimsical with regard to time, repasts, rests, and hours of 
labor, he can yet make up for his want of method by immense processes 
of production, and furnish in an hour an amount of copy it would 
require the persistent application of ordinary writers a half day to 
accomplish. Rarely surpassed in activity of mind, his fertihty of 
resource must be correspondingly great. He has also to a conspicuous 
extent that genius of criticism which withers all it overthrows. His 
invective is terrible, and no man can dig a deeper grave with a pen for 
an opponent, nor consign an adversary to a more positive oblivion. 
Brevity he sometimes carries to excess, and for the sake of a pithy 
paragraph he has been known on occasions to sacrifice a column. 



^6o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Whatever he touches he elucidates. Excelling in clearness of state- 
ment and accuracy of narration, he is never worsted in journalistic 
debate, never put in the wrong of a proposition, and never commits 
himself to a declaration of his own accord unless he has the undis- 
putable facts or figures as a fortification behind him. 

As a legislator he is something of an enigma. Nature is chary of 
superiorit}' : the social conditions necessaiy to form a public man are 
rarely in combination. Intelligence, clear-sightedness, virtue, charac- 
ter, independence, leisure, fortune, consideration alread}- acquired, and 
devotion — all these are seldom united in one individual. Many of the 
above qualities he possesses in an eminent degree, but neither leisure 
nor fortune is one of them. He went through his work generally at a 
run ; never seemed to listen to anything, and yet he heard everything. 
In the committee-room he was indefatigable. Gracious of all men's 
opinions, he was especially tenacious of his own. He possessed the 
happy faculty of assimilation, and hence, with his measures he was 
almost always successful. He antagonized no interest, save when a 
question of principle was at stake, and over and over again he has been 
known to put his own shoulder to the wheel and help a weaker and less 
skillful brother-member up a heav}- hill or across some ugly and tire- 
some stretch of controversy. His colleagues who could not speak in 
debate adored him. In moments of peril for their local measures, and 
when the tide, for the want of an appropriate word or an intelligent 
statement, was bearing them bodily out to sea, Hutchins — consid- 
erate to a fault and alwaj^s omnipresent — arose generally at the oppor- 
tune time, and saved man and measure. The heavier his own bur- 
dens, the more patient his intercourse was with his associates. For 
hours and hours he has been known to draw their bills, smoothe out 
their environments, make their speeches, arrange, eliminate and 
fashion into harmonious shape their local difficulties and antagon- 
isms, and then, finally — as a general certain of the result which he 
has planned and prepared for — pass the bill, and see to it afterwards 
that all the credit of the work went to the member who was alone 
concerned in the enactment of the law. Once on the floor in advo- 
cac}' of his own measures, he was irresistible. The master of ever}' 
detail, concise and logical in statement, luminous in explanation, lucid 
in argument, always brief in the summing up, extremely felicitous in 
retort, rarely cvnical or contemptuous, and never pedantic or over- 
bearing, he had his way more completely, perhaps, in two General 
Assemblies than ever appeared to any who did not analyze the situa- 



STILSON HUTCH INS. 561 

tion thoroughly and add up his accomplished work after the sessions 
were at an end. Chairman of the St. Louis Delegation in the Twenty- 
seventh General Assembly, and a member besides of two or three other 
important committees, the amount of valuable legislation brought for- 
ward, perfected and passed by him was simply enormous. Chairman 
of the Ways and Means Committee in the Twenty-ninth General 
Assembly, if he had never lifted his voice there save in defense of 
the credit of the State and the enforcement of a policy which was to 
make Missouri respected at home and abroad, he would have deserved 
well of the whole people, and been entitled to the especial commenda- 
tion of that commercial metropolis which charged him individually to 
look after its own immediate interests, and to stand forward always 
as the conservative representative of vested rights and solemn obli- 
gations. 

As a politician, Mr. Hutchins is an uncompromising party man. His 
Democracy is of the heart first and afterward of the head. Not 
revengeful ; asking pardon often for the pain he has inflicted ; conceal- 
ing under the appearance of harshness the greatest benevolence of 
disposition ; wanting many things like a child, and yet like a true man 
knowing how to do without them, he takes human nature as he finds it, 
and neither makes himself absurd by fighting wind-mills nor attempting 
to reform the world. The class of those who have hated him most and 
fought him hardest in a political point of view, has been composed of 
men who had a desire for political preferment themselves without 
having received from society or nature the means of acquiring it. 
Genius to such is hateful. An obstacle is voted at once a deadly 
enemy. Equality is their mania because superiority is their martyrdom. 
In every struggle with this element he has invariably come out victo- 
rious. He has one method of attack which is always formidable — he 
learns as soon as possible the enemies of his enemies, and with these he 
takes counsel. Everybody worth writing about has enemies, and 
consequently there is always a starting point for a league. Another 
strong element in Hutchins' character as a politician, is his power 
of combination. He sees clearly the virtue of the idea he proposes to 
work out, and he seeks to bring together the elements which are to 
accomplish it. He understands that the vices, passions, selfishness of 
men are inevitably doomed to produce those shocks, violences and 
perversities which are to human passions what consequences are to 
principles, and he does not hesitate to accept them in the way of 
mercenaries helping him to fight for the right. This is what must be 



^62 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

understood to mean his power of combination. In his contests he knows 
no enemv personally. Nothing is more dangerous than for a sensitive 
man to know those against whom he contends. Hatred against the 
cause shrinks before the feeling for the person. Unwilling partiality is 
experienced. Many times sensibility disarms the understanding, and 
instead of reasoning, the partisan finds himself softening, whilst the 
sensitiveness of a commiserating man soon usurps the place of his 
opinions. Mr, Hutchins also has the rare gift of inspiring his followers 
with an enthusiasm that never wearies nor is mercenary. Especiall}' 
do the young men take ser\'ice under him and do an incredible amount 
of work out of their sheer inclination, and because of the influence he 
exercises over them. Add to these qualities a sleepless energy, a 
perfect system of detail, an intensity of purpose that never takes 
anything for granted, and a boldness in planning and a rapidity in 
execution that leaves between the flash and the report scarcely the 
interval of a second, and Mr. Hutchins, the politician, in an almost 
perfect light. 

As the man and the citizen he has 3-et to be viewed from another 
stand-point. Of large and liberal views in all matters of business, 
full of enterprise, and believing much in push and perseverance, he 
can always be found in the van of ever}- movement looking toward 
the accomplishment of real and practical good. His time and his 
newspaper are ever at the service of his adopted city, whose destiny 
impresses him with something of both veneration and superstition — 
veneration for a growth and progress that have been comparatively 
unequaled, and superstition to the extent of a belief in a future 
especially directed by Providence or the stars. Of extensive acquaint- 
ance, and very popular socially ; charitable to an extent altogether dis- 
proportionate to his means ; unostentatious in everything ; one of the 
truest men to his friends that ever lived, and one of the most lenient to 
his adversaries after the combat is over ; still in the vigor and prime of 
a remarkably eventful life, the work before him to do and yet unac- 
complished is immense, but to the fulflllment of his destiny he will 
carr}^ in the future, as in the past, the matured and strengthened ele- 
ments and accessories of a character that ultimately is to triumph over 
all obstacles, and survive to be made stronger and better for the detrac- 
tions and conspiracies that have in vain essayed to blacken it and drag 
it down. 



DR. H. N. SPENCER 



(i)\R. HORATIO NELSON SPENCER is prominent among the 
I / 3^ounger members of the medical profession who are coming on to 
take the phices of the intellectual giants who are passing oft' the 
stage of action. The strong judgment which he has evinced, and the 
careful training which marked his preparatory career, have in them the 
highest promise of a future of yet more extended honor and usefulness. 

He w^as born at Port Gibson, Mississippi, July 14, 1842. His father, 
a native of Connecticut, graduated at Yale College, and then, after 
reading law, removed to Mississippi to make that State his permanent 
home. He was married to a Miss Marshall, and practiced his profes- 
sion with honor and protit. That was the golden era of the Mississippi 
Bar, and he was one of that galaxy of talent of which Prentiss formed 
the central figure, though grouped with others scarcely his inferiors in 
ability and brillianc3^ 

Dr. Spencer graduated at Oakland College, Mississippi, a favorite 
educational institution for the youth of that State, taking successively 
the degrees of A.B. and A.M. After graduating, he removed to New 
York and commenced the study of medicine, graduating there from the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1868. In New York he was 
married to Miss Kirtland, a daughter of I. B. Kirtland, of Memphis, 
Tennessee. Upon completion of his collegiate studies, he felt that it 
would be desirable to supplement them with such technical knowledge 
as was attainable in Europe from observation and experience, and he 
accordingly went to Berlin, Prussia, where he spent a year studying 
with Lucae, the celebrated ear physician of the government hospital 
established there. Returning to America in 1870, he came direct to 
St. Louis and took up his residence here, since which time he may be 
said to have been incorporated with the professional and social life of 
the city. He is now connected with the City Hospital as consulting- 
surgeon, and has charge of the ear department of the Sisters' Hospital 
on Grand avenue. His ambition and his labors are entirely bounded bv 
his profession, which claims now, as it must hereafter, his undivided 
attention. 



t^A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Of Dr. Spencer it may be said that his biography is now rather to be 
hved than written ; yet, the fragment that has ah-eady been given to the 
world, justifies the behef that his biographer of the future will have very 
much to say, that will be lacking neither in interest nor in the recital of 
honorable and successful endeavor. 



NICHOLAS SCHAEFFER. 



/ I \HE ancestors of Nicholas Sciiaeffer, one of the largest and 
JL most prosperous soap manufacturers in the West, and whose 
business career in St. Louis extends over a period of nearly four 
decades, were residents of Alsace, formerly belonging to France, but 
now a part of the German Confederation. Mr. Schaeffer is of French 
descent, and was born in the small but industrious town of Marlem, 
Alsace, December 4, 1814. All Europe, at that time, was disturbed by 
the ambition of Napoleon the First, and it was not until June of the 
year following, that peace, under the first Empire, was restored — the 
result of the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo. The father of 
Nicholas, who was an humble but industrious shoe-maker, died in the 
year 1816, leaving a widow and seven children to mourn his loss. Of 
these seven children, who were all boys, and all of whom, except three, 
have passed awa}^, Nicholas was the sixth. 

The family was an economical one, and, by dint of industry, and by 
husbanding resources, the father left to his family a fair, but by no 
means large, competence, out of which Nicholas, from his portion, was 
enabled to receive a limited education. His school days were limited 
to the means left him, and extended over a period of only a few years, 
for, at the early age of fourteen, we find that he had left school, and 
engaged himself to a manufacturer of soap and candles in the famous 
old town of Strasburg. The practical business lessons he learned 
here, were to serve him in after life, for it was really here that 
he laid the foundation (although, perhaps, unconscious of it at the 
time) on which he was to build his fortune. It is not a matter 
of surprise that his self-imposed apprenticeship lasted only one brief 
year, when we learn that his work was exacting and laborious, 
and his compensation the insignificant sum of $1.50 per week. But 
even of this small sum Nicholas managed to save something. Turning 
his face homeward, he remained in his native town until the year 1832, 
when his mother and four sons, including Nicholas, bade adieu to the 
land of their nativitv and came to America. 



566 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

The \oyage was a long and tedious one, but without an}' serious 
mishaps. They reached Baltimore in safety, that cit}' having been the 
objective point of their destination. Here, however, the}- did not 
remain long, and having purchased a horse and wagon, they set out for 
Cincinnati. Their household effects, the greater part of which they 
had broufjht with them across the water, were loaded and sent forward 
on freight wagons, by which means all freight was transported across 
the mountains at that time, to Wheeling, Virginia. They had not pro- 
ceeded very far on their long and wear}' journey before a serious 
misfortune befell them. Arriving at Hagerstown, Maryland, where 
they sought a little rest and refreshment, their horse was stolen, and 
the most diligent efforts failed to recover him. At that time horses, 
being scarce in that section, could hardly be had "for love or money," 
and they were unable to replace the animal taken from them at anv 
reasonable price. In this dilemma they were compelled to sell their 
wagon and harness, and reach their destination by some other means. 
The harness, which had cost them $22, they were compelled to part 
with for the paltry sum of $5.00; and the wagon, for which they had 
paid $90, realized them only $7.00. The mother was furnished trans- 
portation on one of the heavy lumbering freight wagons in use at that 
period, while the boys, all able-bodied and strong, made the journey to 
Wheeling on foot. When they all had reached that point without 
further mishap, passage was engaged on a steamboat to Cincinnati, 
which place they reached safely, having been occupied tzvcnty-oue days 
in making the journey from Baltimore. 

At Cincinnati Nicholas, now in his seventeenth year, being unable to 
secure employment at his trade, engaged himself to a stone-mason. If 
he had not learned the stone-mason's art, there was one thing in con- 
nection with this business he prided himself he could do, and that was 
to mix mortar. The business was honest, and he preferred to work 
rather than to remain idle, and so for a period of six months he worked 
at mortar mixing, receiving therefor the sum of seventy-five cents per 
day at first, and subsequently eighty-seven and a half cents. His next 
employment was in a tannery, at the rate of fifteen dollars per month for 
his services, and to support himself. He had but a small margin to go 
upon after his necessary expenses were paid out of his wages, but he 
had the pluck to "bear up"' under any and all circumstances. Finally 
the skies began to brighten a little, and he was able to obtain employ- 
ment at his trade at a salary of thirty dollars per month. He remained 
in the soap and candle manufactory for nearly two years, at the end of 



NICHOLAS S C H A E F F E R . 567 

which, time, with $250 in his pocket, he went to New Orleans. 
After remaining in that city for a short time, and faihng to get emplo}'- 
ment, he went to Vicksburg. At this point he also failed to find 
emplo3"ment at his trade, and, his money being all expended, he 
engaged in quanying stone at a compensation of two dollars per day. 
At this occupation Nicholas worked nearh' three months, when he 
abandoned it and obtained a position as second steward in the old 
Mansion House at Vicksburg, at a sakuy of fort}- dollars per month and 
found. Here he remained seven months, when, having conceived the 
idea that flat-boating was a prolitable business, he returned to Cincin- 
nati, where, in compan}- with two of his brothers and a fourth person 
they purchased a flat-boat, put aboard the necessar}- supplies, started 
out, and continued in that occupation for one year. 

Nicholas, at this time, was reaching up into the years of manhood. 
At twenty-one years old we find him the one-quarter owner of a flat- 
boat, driving business as best he could for a livelihood. This was in 
the year 1836, and w^hen the financial crash of the subsequent year 
prostrated the river trade, he abandoned the boat business, returned to 
Vicksburg, and opened a little store for the sale of general merchandise 
and liquors. In this business he was quite successful until the Legisla- 
ture of Mississippi passed an anti-liquor bill, and he sold out. With 
three thousand five hundred dollars in his pocket he went to Cincinnati, 
where he purchased all the necessary outfit for the manufacture of 
candles, returned to Vicksburg, and again commenced business. The 
first six months he did well ; but trade slackening after that, he sold out 
and again made up his mind to seek some new locality where business 
prospects were more inviting. 

In April 1839, Mr. Schaefter came to St. Louis with what means he 
had, and laid the foundation of his present extensive business. He 
commenced at the corner of Cheny and Second streets, in a building 
of moderate pretensions. During the first six months his business pros- 
pered beyond his most sanguine expectations, and his profits amounted 
to $4,000. The six months following, his business was less prosperous, 
and Mr. Schaefl'er met with some reverses. These did not discourage 
him. In 1840 the establishment was removed from Second street to 
Main, between Cherr}- and Wash streets, where the establishment 
remained for a number of years. In 1844 Mr. Schaefler removed his 
business to the present location on Washington avenue, between Nine- 
teenth and Twenty-first streets, which has, in the vears that have fol- 
lowed, grown to its present magnificent proportions. From a small 



^68 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

beginning the annual sales have increased until, for some years past, 
they have reached $1,000,000 annually, and sometimes as high as 
$1,250,000. Goods manufactured at this establishment are now sent 
out to all parts of the Union. 

Mr. Schaetler has held and still holds man}^ positions of honor and 
trust. He has been a member of the City Council : is president of 
the Pacific Insurance Company of this city ; is a director in the St. 
Louis Fire and Marine Insurance Company ; is president of the St. 
Louis French Window Glass Company : a director and vice-president 
of the Illinois and St. Louis Railway Company, and is also a director 
in some two or three moneyed institutions in the city, and has been a 
director in the Merchants" Exchange. 

At the age of sixt3--one, Mr. Schaeffer is blessed with perfect health. 
and enjoys the ample fortune which has been accumulated through a 
long life of varied experiences and busy toil. He is liberal to the poor, 
and towards all deserving charities his hand is never closed. His dis- 
position is kindly, his views broad and liberal, his habits regular and 
abstemious, his integrit}^ unquestioned, and his business quahfications 
of the first order. He enjoys life, and has visited, on business and 
pleasure, all the principal cities in the Union. He has been in Europe 
four times since 1858, making his last trip in the year 1865, visiting 
during his several trips all the principal cities on the Continent. 

Mr. Schaefter was married in this city in the 3'ear 1843. The 
result of this union is a family of six children, all of whom survive 
except one. 



R. M. FUNKHOUSER. 



/ I \HE subject of this sketch was born at Equality, Gallatin county, 
_L Illinois, March 31, 1819, and can trace his descent to families who 
were alike noted for their private virtues as well as for their public 
services : among whom, on his mother's side, were the Crosses and 
Coles of Maryland, the Boones of Kentucky, the Ogdens of South 
Carolina", and the Johnstons of Virginia, who settled at Jamestown about 
the same time as John Smith. His mother's father, Zechariah Cross, 
was with General Marion during the Revolutionary war, and was closel}' 
related to Colonel Cross of Revolutionary fame. It would seem that 
Mr. Funkhouser is regularly descended from rebel stock, as almost all 
the males who were able to carry a musket offered their services to the 
country. It is related that several of the gentler sex, even, were so 
fired with patriotic spirit that they shouldered guns and served through 
the struggle. His great grandmother on the maternal side was Daniel 
Boone's sister. 

His father's family came to Virginia some five or six generations ago. 
Leaving Switzerland, they went to Holland, where they remained some 
years, whence they crossed to England, then to New York, finally 
settling in Virginia. His grandmother on his father's side was Miss 
Margaret Young, whose family were North of Ireland Presbyterians and 
of whose descendants the Old Dominion has a considerable number, as 
have Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky. His father was related to 
one branch of the Prestons, to the Rolands and McClungs, and the 
Morgans of Kentucky. The famous rebel General John Morgan was a 
cousin. Christopher Funkhouser left Virginia when Mr. Funkhouser's 
father was but nine years old, moving to Kentucky, to a small town on 
the Green river called Morganstown, which he laid off. The family 
remained here for many years. Robert Roland having married removed 
with his family, which consisted of wife and three children, to Equality, 
in a district of country then known as the U. S. Saline, but subsequently 
called Gallatin county, Illinois. At this time, the Saline was of very 
great importance, as it supplied the West and South with almost all of 



570 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the salt used. Mr. R. R. Funkhouser carried on a very lucrative 
business for years, making salt and distributing it in keel boats and 
Avagons to the different States and Territories, also in merchandising. 
He was quite a prominent politician, being chosen a member of the first 
Legislature of the State. After remaining for several years in Equality, 
he removed to a small town in the same State called Carmi, in White 
count}'. 

The early da3^s of R. M. were spent here at school, but upon the 
demise of his father, in 1833, he began life upon his own responsibilit}'. 
Not being satisfied with his previous schooling, he laid by a sufficient 
amount of mone}' to enable him to attend a seminar}" for three years. 
He afterward clerked till 1839 ^'^^' ^^'^^ uncles, when he w^ent North to 
visit some relatives in Effingham county. While there, he taught school 
for four months. Thence he went to Alton, where he had a foster- 
brother in the banking business, who informed him there was no oppor- 
tunit\' for him to engage in business. He then started for St. Louis, 
arriving here in April 1840. 

x\t several stores where he applied for a situation he was unsuccess- 
ful, but with the determination to obtain a position of some kind, he 
applied to Mr. T. R. Selmes, with whom he clerked for a year. 

Truth is preferable to fiction, and for that reason it would be well 
to correct here a mistake occurring in a former biograph}-. Mr. Funk- 
houser, the morning after his arrival, while sauntering round the city, 
came across an auction, stopped, and bought some looking-glasses. 
These were not hawked about the streets by Mr. Funkhouser, but 
were packed in boxes and stowed away. When he had been in the 
employ of T. R. Selmes for several months, he mentioned them to 
Mr. Selmes, who bought them. Mr. Funkhouser made a large profit in 
the sale, as did Mr. Selmes in turn realize a handsome sum. 

At the end of two years, Mr. Funkhouser entered into a partnership 
with Edwin A. Mattox, which lasted for several years. He continued to 
carry on the dr}^ goods business until 1847, when he entered regularly 
into the produce commission, having, however, at the same time a one- 
half interest in a retail dry goods house in St. Louis, and the entire 
interest in one at Warsaw, Illinois, which were carried on for a year, 
when the}' were closed with a profit. 

On the 8th day of April 1847, he was united to Miss Sarah J. Selmes, 
the daughter of Mr. T. R. Selmes, ex-Mayor of Hannibal, with whom 
he first commenced business, and who was at this time laying the 
foundation of the large fortune which he subsequently amassed. Tilden 



R. M, FUNKHOUSER. 57^ 

Russell Selmes was born in England in 1804. In 1824 he settled in 
New York, and commenced his remarkable career as a business man. 
In 1831, he married Mary D. Reeves, by whom he had a daughter. 
In 1839, he came West to St. Louis, subsequently settling in Han- 
nibal, Missouri, where he engaged in merchandising and banking, 
having transactions in all the principal cities in the Union. He soon 
amassed a large fortune, and was known as one of the most enterprising- 
capitalists in the West. In 1849 his wife died, and he, the following 
\-ear, married a second time, leading to the altar Miss S. B. Benton, of 
Vergennes, Vermont. 

Mr. Selmes was chosen Mayor of Hannibal three successive terms, 
and many of the improvements are due to his enterprise and means. In 
pohtics, he sided with the Union, and lived to see the vindication of his 
opinions. He was a communicant of the Episcopal Church. His moral 
character was unblemished and his great moral courage unquestioned. 
Mr. Selmes was a descendant of some of the most ancient and noble 
families in England, as was his wife a descendant of some of the most 
noble families of England and Scodand. He died in Quincy, Illinois. 
April 28, 1870. His death was a loss to his family, to his friends and 
to the State. 

In 1849, M^'- Funkhouser formed a partnership with Mr. E. L. 
Pottle, of Boston, which continued till 1858. During this time the 
business was very prosperous. His health becoming very poor, he 
was compelled to retire from business. In 1861, having somewhat 
improved,, he again commenced work, alone, but shortly after admitted 
a former partner, Jonathan W. Pottle. About this time, he established 
a house in Chicago, of which Mr. Pottle took charge ; the firm name in 
Chicago being R. M. Funkhouser & Co. In 1862 Dr. J. B. Burnett 
was received as a member of the firm in St. Louis, which was known 
as Funkhouser & Burnett. The business increasing justified the estab- 
lishment of a house in New York in 1863, under the firm name 01 
Burnett & Funkhouser, of which Dr. Burnett took charge. 

As the war progressed, after the establishment of the Chicago 
house, not being considered very loval, Mr. F. concluded to sell out 
his interest to Mr. J. W. Pottle. In 1865 the St. Louis house was 
closed, and in the same year he went East for the purpose of closing 
his New York house, which he did in 1866, preparatory to retiring 
from all active business : but, owing to the solicitations of a former 
silent partner of the late firm, he carried on the old business. Meet- 
ing with some unlooked-for losses, which were all paid to the last 



572 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



dollar, and still having a tine fortune left, he retired from a business 
where all depended on the honesty and integrity of men. 

Having closed up in 1867, he could not remain idle long. He 
entered into the real estate and exchange of merchandise, tinalh' drift- 
ing into Santo Domingo affairs with a very sagacious and good man, 
whose death interfered materially with well-laid plans. J. P. O" Sullivan 
was emplo3^ed for a year and a half in Santo Domingo, through whom 
Mr. F. procured a valuable franchise in the way of a steamboat con- 
vention, together with land grants, etc., all of which he still holds. 

He possesses a great deal of property which is considerably scattered. 
As a business man, the success which he has had is the best evidence 
of his business excellence. As a man of integrity, the many responsible 
positions and offices of trust which he has held are indications of the 
high confidence shown him by his fellow-men. In times past he has 
been connected with some of the principal banks and money corpora- 
tions of the city. At one time he was president of the Chamber of 
Commerce. For years he was connected with the Fire Department, 
and was ever zealous in promoting its interests. He has ever been 
foremost to relieve the distressed and to contribute to all charitable 
purposes. It is unnecessary to speak of his private benefactions. It 
has been his delight to encourage and assist young men starting in hfe. 
He ascribes all of his success to indomitable energy, singleness of 
purpose and close application to business. The vast general informa- 
tion possessed by Mr. Funkhouser has been acquired by observation, 
experience and constant study after business hours. Mr. Funkhouser 
returned to this city from New York last October after an absence of 
nearly ten vears. Here he purposes to spend the remainder of his life. 
He is of opinion that St. Louis is the most promising city on the 
continent, and is ready to do his part in forwarding her interests so far 
as he is able, but he feels there is a lack of public spirit here which 
should not exist in so important a city. 



JOHN JACKSON 



ONE of the most noteworthy representatives of what is usually 
termed the Scotch-Irish race in St. Louis, is John Jackson, 
whose connection M'ith the growth of this citv entitles him to 
an honored place among its citizens. 

Mr. Jackson was born in the County Down, North of Ireland, April 
21, 182 1. His father was a respectable farmer of the county, and gave 
his sons such an education as the schools of the countr}- at that period 
afforded. Up to his nineteenth year, he made the farm his home, 
assisting in tilling the soil, and taking advantage of such opportunities 
of attending school as his duties allowed. 

Having attained his nineteenth year, he entered a wholesale grocery 
establishment in Belfast, where he remained twelve years, in various 
capacities. 

In 1852, he emigrated to America, coming to New Orleans, where 
his brother James, who had preceded him to this countr}-, resided, 
and who now occupies an honored and trusted position in the Crescent 
City. Here he entered the well-known house of Dyas & Co., with 
which he remained until 1855, when he came to St. Louis in the interest 
of the salt trade. This business Mr. Jackson established in St. Louis, 
in connection with the old house of McGill, Jackson & Co., of New 
Orleans, and it has proved one of the most prosperous branches of 
trade in St. Louis. 

After his arrival, Mr. Jackson soon began to take a ver}- prominent 
part in the affairs of trade and commerce in St. Louis. His business 
energy soon brought him into note with his fellow-merchants, who 
looked upon him as a man of sound judgment and unblemished busi- 
ness integrity. 

Mr. Jackson has, at various times, been connected with some of the 
most important enterprises and organizations in St. Louis, where his 
judgment and counsel have been of material assistance in forming the 
policy of the concerns. In 1861 he was a director in the old Southern 
Bank, and as early as 1867 he became prominently connected with the 
Illinois and St. Louis Bridge Company, and never severed his con- 
nection with it until he saw the enterprise a complete success. He has 
been vice-president of the St. Louis Grain Elevator Companv, and was 



574 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

among the tirst to subscribe to that enterprise ; a director in the old 
State Bank, and vice-president of the Third National Bank. For 
several years he was a director of the old Union Insurance Compan}', 
a stockholder in the St. Charles Bridge Company, and has much to do 
in the boards of some of the street railroads. He was also a director 
in the North Missouri and the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern 
Railroads. 

In November 1874, ^^^"- Jackson assisted in organizing the St. Louis 
Salt Warehouse Company, of which he was elected president. This 
warehouse is situate at the foot of Bremen avenue, and was erected 
under his superintendence. It was completed on the ist of July, 1875, 
and has a storage capacity of 150,000 barrels of salt. A warehouse of 
this kind had been much needed for years, and obviates the delay and 
cost attending the handling in the old wav. The river boats have easy 
access to the warehouse, and a railroad track through its centre gives 
facilities for the loading of nine or ten cars at one operation. 

Mr. Jackson was also very active in the advocacy of Captain Eads' 
famous jetty system to be applied at the mouth of the Mississippi River, 
and his acquaintance with leading people of New Orleans was used to 
overcome, and did overcome, much of the intense opposition which at 
one time existed there. 

In all positions tilled by Mr. Jackson, he has exhibited remarkable 
executive ability, an astonishingl}^ clear perception of the wants of the 
different enterprises, and a judgment that was seldom at fault when 
their linancial policy was to be considered. 

Mr. Jackson was married in 1857 to Miss Rogers of St. Louis, who 
has borne him two children. 

Still in the summer time of his life, Mr. Jackson is far from the end 
of his useful career. He has never indulged in politics any further 
than to exercise the right to vote as his reason dictated, preferring, in 
common with his fellow-citizens, the more substantial rewards of honest 
industry, in the way of trade and commerce, to the ephemeral glory of 
the politician. As a merchant and business man he is irreproachable, 
and holds a front rank wath his fellows. In his domestic life and in 
private circles he is no less popular than in the business circles of the 
city. Here his many social qualities make him truly appreciated. 

By his unfailing industry, economy and business integrity, Mr. 
Jackson has secured a handsome portion of this world's goods, 
which he always uses to the best advantage. Unostentatious in his 
benevolence, his purse is ever open to assist the worthy or promote 
the public good. 



AUGUSTE AMEDEE MELLIER, 



IN St. Louis, as in ever}^ large and prosperous community, there is a 
class of citizens more quiet and demure in their every-day life than 

the great masses that go to make up its varied population. Thev are 
painstaking in business and the many litde duties which constitute the 
daily routine of a business man's existence, though their slow, patient, 
plodding and undeviating labors, sure and substantial as they are 
always, secure not merely independence to themselves, but add in a 
thousand different ways to the power and importance of the community 
in which they reside. To this class society is deeply indebted, as the 
true custodian of its interests, and the promoters of material progress 
generalh'. It is usually this class of men who rear the beautiful struc- 
tures that grace and adorn business thoroughfares and avenues, and who 
keep commerce moving, thus making their influence felt to the furthest 
confines of the earth. 

To this class of citizens belongs Auguste Amedee Mellier, one of 
the most prosperous and influential merchants of this city. He is 
another of those citizens of foreign birth and parentage, who have done 
much toward building up the mercantile power and reputation of St. 
Louis. He was born at his father's country seat. La Miniere. just in 
sight of Versailles, France, in the year 1825. 

His ancestors were old French Huguenots, those on the maternal 
side, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, taking refuge in 
Switzerland, where their descendants ( De Mieville's) still reside on the 
shores of the Lake of Neufchatel. His grandfather was sole proprie- 
tor of the "La Fontaine Print and Delaine Factories," a ver\' old and 
celebrated works near Lyons, in France. 

Mr. Albin Mellier, the father of Amedee, removed in 1822 to La 
Miniere, where he carried on extensively the manufacture of prints ; 
and in 1825, in the reign of Charles X, he was appointed by the Min- 
ister of the Interior, member of the Council for the Commune of 
Guyancourt, which was a mark of great merit in those days. He emi- 
grated to America with his familv when Amedee was but three j^ears 



576 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

old, and started the print works of Warren & Rockland, near Baltimore, 
Maryland, which were among the tirst established in the United States, 
Young Amedee was sent to the famous Academy of Bolmars, at West 
Chester, Pennsylvania, a well-known seat of learning, where he re- 
ceived the rudiments of an education. 

At the age of fourteen he was sent to Europe to complete what had 
been begun so auspiciously in America, where he spent two years at 
a branch of the King's College in London, and two in Paris, attending 
an academy for the instruction of English and American students. 

During his residence in Europe his father and mother both died. His 
father was commissioned before the annexation to fix the boundar}' line 
of Texas, and while up the Sabine River with the joint commission 
appointed by the two Governments for that purpose, contracted one of 
the malarial fevers incidental to that locality, and died in Louisville, 
Kentucky, on his road home. At his death he was possessed of a 
valuable estate in Fayette county, Western Pennsylvania, known as 
"Friendship Hill," formerly the property of the Hon. Albert Gallatin, 
Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson. This estate Mr. 
Mellier sold in the year 1858, to Hon. Littleton Dawson, in whose 
possession it still remains. 

At the age of nineteen he returned from Europe, and in 1847 came in 
St. Louis, a perfect stranger without a single acquaintance in the city. 
He resolved to engage in merchandise and general trade, and, with this 
object in view, entered the commercial house of S. S. Kennedy & Co., 
and afterward that of John Simonds, where he remained three years. 
By a strict attention to business, he soon became a favorite and confi- 
dential clerk with his employers, who placed the most implicit confi- 
dence in his integrity and honest3^ Severing his connection with the 
commission business, he became a secretary for Hon. Henry T. Blow, 
who had just organized the Collier White Lead and Oil Company. In 
this capacity he acted about three years, when he was attacked with 
a complaint which is peculiar to persons engaged in handling white lead, 
and, upon medical advice, was forced to seek other pursuits. 

During his connection with the. Collier Company he came in daily 
contact with men engaged in the drug business. This daily intercourse 
finally ended in his becoming interested in the drug house of Bacon, 
Hyde & Co., one of the leading drug houses of the cit3^ In this house 
he remained three years as a salesman, when he was offered superior 
inducements b}' Barnard, Adams & Peck, with whom he remained until 
1857, when he established the house of Richardson, Mellier & Co. 



AMEDEE A. MELLIER. 577 

In 1862 the co-partnership was dissolved, and Mr, MelHer remained 
inactive and out of trade until 1865, when he started the house of 
Scott & Mellier, in which connection he remained until 1870, when he 
bought Mr. Scott out, and has conducted the business in his own name 
ever since. His two eldest sons, Kennedy Duncan and Albin Mellier, 
are partners in the business. It is needless to say that it is one of the 
representative houses of the city, and enjoys a patronage South and 
West second to none in the same line in the Mississippi Valley. 

In 1848 Mr. Mellier married, in Alleghany City, Pennsylvania, 
Christiana, daughter of the late William Haverstick, Esq., of Philadel- 
phia, a lady of varied personal accomplishments and mental qualifica- 
tions, in every way worthy of the man whose name she bears and an 
ornament to society. His children have all received the most liberal 
education the best seats of learning in the country could afford, and all 
promise to be worthy representatives of a worthy sire. 

During an active business life, extending over a quarter of a century, 
all of which has been spent in connection with the growth and advance- 
ment of St. Louis, Mr. Mellier has been connected with numerous 
important corporations in the capacity of director, and all have more or 
less been benefited by his sound wisdom and efiicient counsel. He has 
always been a consistent Democrat, but not of the rabid, partisan stamp, 
although he never neglected an opportunity of advancing the interests 
of his party. He has never sought political preferment of any kind, 
although, on more occasions than one, his fellow-citizens have paid him 
the high compliment of offering him places of trust and responsibility. 
He has rather preferred to give his entire attention to his private busi- 
ness and his family circle, where he is the object of the most enthusi- 
astic admiration and regard. 

In the list of her citizens honored throughout the business world for 
stability, integrity, fair dealing and high, pure motives, St. Louis has 
good cause to be proud of the honorable record made by her adopted 
son Auguste Amedee Mellier. 



DANIEL D. PAGE. 



CA )M0NG the citizens of St. Louis who, during a long and eventful 

-i--V, life, possessed, in a marked degree, the unbounded confidence 

and esteem of their fellow-citizens, was Daniel D. Page. 

He was born in Parsonsfield, York county, Maine, March 5, 1790. 
He was of English descent, his ancestors coming to America before 
the war of Independence. His father served in the Continental army, 
and was present at the battle of Fort Ticonderoga and the capture of 
General Burgoyne. His father was of the wealthier class of farmers, 
and was blessed with a sufficiency of this world's goods to place himself 
and famiW in easy circumstances, but, owing to an ill-directed gener- 
osity in befriending others in the shape of indorsement, he was stripped 
of the greater portion of his estates. 

Young Daniel, the subject of this memoir, received such educa- 
tional advantages as the schools of the period afforded, giving his 
attention to his studies in winter, and assisting his father in summer 
in the management of his farm. In this manner passed his exist- 
ence until his fifteenth year, when he began to entertain mercantile 
aspirations. Leaving the old homestead, he went to the city of Port- 
land, Maine, and found employment at a very small salary in a 
general store, such as the country establishments of the period were^ 
keeping for sale a general assortment of everything, and not con- 
fined to any particular branch of trade. Here he also learned the 
useful and, in many cases, lucrative occupation of a baker. With 
the knowledge thus gained, he went to Boston, and established a 
bakery, and in a short time found himself at the head of a very 
successful establishment. In Boston he married Miss Deborah Young, 
and soon after determined upon emigrating westward. The same 
fever which struck thousands of the most industrious and enterpris- 
ing sons of New England, smote him, and in a short time after his 
marriage, gathering up his household gods, he turned his face to 
the setting sun. 

In company with his wife he crossed the Alleghanies in a "Dearborn 



580 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

wagon," and brought up at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where, in company 
with two other adventurers westward-bound, he built a flat-boat, using 
his wagon for a cabin for Mrs. Page, and floated down to Cincinnati, 
where he parted with his two confederates. 

He removed to Louisville, where he built another flat-boat, and 
loading it with the produce of the country, he floated down to New 
Orleans, trading along the route down and thus disposing of his stock. 
There he took up his abode, building his houses with old flat-boats and 
such like material. He then established himself in the tobacco trade, 
drying, assorting, repacking and shipping the weed to Europe, and 
drawing against his consignments. This new enterprise bore every 
indication of realizing for him a fortune, when the failing health of his 
wife, who could not stand the climate, compelled him to look for a 
more congenial place of abode. Converting his stock of goods into 
money, he purchased a general assortment of goods and started for 
St. Louis. The boat carrying himself, his wife and stock sank, and the 
goods were greatly damaged. 

He arrived in St. Louis in the year 1818, and immediately entered 
the grocery business, afterward adding a bakery. Business succeeded 
with him, and his upright dealing soon gained for him the good wishes 
of his fellow-townsmen. Missouri was admitted into the Union in 
1820. St. Louis was growing fast, and emigrants and settlers from all 
portions of the Eastern and New England States were arriving daily at 
her levees. New enterprises began to spring up on every side, and the 
city began to assume a shape. After the advent of steamboating on 
the Mississippi, a new class of enterprising settlers began to replace the 
old French settlers, and the busy hum of various manufactories was 
the first thing that attracted the attention of the wayfarer after he had 
entered the city. Municipal politics began to attract the attention of 
the citizens, and the political campaigns of this early date were notable 
for the fierce spirit with which they were conducted. 

In 1829, Mr. Page was called to the Mayoralty by an almost unani- 
mous voice of the people, being the second Mayor of St. Louis — 
William Carr Lane having been the first. That his administration proved 
acceptable to the people, is shown by the fact that he filled this import- 
ant oflice four consecutive terms. The elevation of Mr. Page to the 
first oflice in the gift of his fellow-citizens, was the advent of a new 
state of aflairs, and gave a fresh impetus to all aflairs of a public 
nature. During his different terms of oflice new projects were placed 
on foot and successfully carried out, all of which were of lasting ben- 



D. D. PAGE. 581 

efit to the city, and which form peculiar features in St. Louis, even unto 
the present day. Particularly the water-works (which he carried) by 
advancing money to keep Abram Fox, original contractor, in funds to 
complete the same ; the Fire Department and the improvement of the 
city by grading and paving of the streets, and he was always ready to 
advance money to carry out public enterprises and to assist individuals 
who were compelled to have assistance when found worthy. The plan 
for the present system of water-works was formed and strenuously 
advocated by the Mayor, D. D. Page, who addressed several communi- 
cations to the Council upon this important theme. The opening up of 
new streets received his attention, and the work of paving and grading 
progressed rapidly. Seventh street was extended to the northern 
boundary of the city ; Fourth street was ordered to be surveyed 
from Market street to Lombard street, and Second street was graded 
and paved between Olive and Locust streets. Locust street was also 
graded and paved from the western side of Main street to the western 
side of Fourth street. During the administration of Mr. Page, the 
bank of the United States was also established in St. Louis, and many 
other important and useful corporations organized. 

In 1833 Dr. Samuel Merry was elected Mayor, but owing to an 
existing disqualification, never took the seat. Mr. Page held over until 
John W. Johnson was elected and qualified. 

In 1833, Mr. Page built and put in operation the first steam flour mill 
built in the city. Wheat at this time was worth but forty cents per 
bushel, and during the building of the mill he advertised to pay $1.25 
per bushel for all the wheat that would be delivered from the States of 
Illinois and Missouri for one year. The amount received during the 
year was about 3,600 bushels, merely enough to test his mill. This, 
however, gave a fresh impetus to wheat-growing in the West. In 1835 
he advertised to purchase all the wheat on the Missouri River to 
Weston, and chartered the S. B. Chambers, Wm. Sellers commander, 
to bring wheat to St. Louis, and loaded her down with wheat. 

From 1833 until 1845, Mr. Page gave his entire attention to his busi- 
ness matters. In reviewing the history and records of all the public 
enterprises of this portion of St. Louis' history, the name of Daniel D, 
-Page is to be found assisting by his means and money, and encouraging 
by his sound counsel any measure which looked toward the benefit of 
his adopted city. His cotemporaries, some few of whom still survive, 
speak of his energy and enterprise in the most laudable terms. In 
1848, he associated with him Henry D. Bacon, and started the banking 



^82 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

house of Page & Bacon, which continued in operation until 1855, when, 
on account of financial difficulties, brought about by the building of the 
Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, the house suspended. This banking 
institution, in its palmy days, was looked upon as one of the most relia- 
ble in the West, and its paper was taken at sight in California, the 
Sandwich Islands, Mexico, and even in China. With the suspension of 
the banking house Mr. Page retired from active business, and spent 
the balance of his existence in endeavoring to straighten up his compli- 
cated aifairs. He died in Washington, D. C, April 29, 1869. 

Mr. Page was one of the incorporators of the Boatmen's Savings 
Institution, and also of the Pacific Railroad. Page & Bacon were 
mainly instrumental in building the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad from 
St. Louis to Vincennes. A man of strictly honest and upright principles, 
pure and moral in private and public life, of unblemished business integ- 
rity, he stood a peer in the mercantile and social relations of his existence ; 
of unbounded energy and the broadest ideas of commerce, he exerted 
all his eftbrts toward building up the commercial and mercantile im- 
portance of St. Louis, which his foresight told him would, in the great 
struggle for precedence, outstrip all competitors, and become the proud- 
est city of the West. To build up and beautify was his great ambition ; 
to leave monuments of labors for those to come after him, was his soul- 
absorbing desire ; and to pave the way for future generations, was the 
end and aim of his hopes. How well he did all this, those who still 
remember him know'. His usefulness is not forgotten by a grateful 
people, who will cherish the name of Daniel D. Page as one of the most 
honored citizens of this vast city. 



JOHN H. TERRY. 



/TvHE subject of this sketch, although comparatively a young man, 
-1- holds a strong position in the estimation of the people of St. Louis. 
John H. Terry was born in Seneca county, New York, on the 
picturesque banks of Cayuga Lake. His father, James Terry, was a 
well-to-do farmer, of Irish descent, and came originally from Long 
Island. His mother was of English descent, and was born in New 
York. 

John H. was the eighth of a family of ten children. Up to his 
twenty-third year he worked on his father's farm in summer, and 
attended the district school in winter. Up to the day of his death it 
had been the great desire of his father, that his son John should be a 
farmer and follow in his footsteps, and preserve intact the old home- 
stead. This, however, never met with the youth's inclinations, who, 
from an early period, had always aspired to a profession. His father 
died in 1859. 

One year after his father's death, he went to Albany and entered the 
law school of that city, for which he had been well prepared by pre- 
vious attendance at the academies of Truemansburg and Ithaca. While 
in Albany, he paid for his instruction with the proceeds of his own 
manual labor, an experience which marks the pages of the early history 
of some of the finest specimens of American manhood on record. 
Returning to Ithaca, he entered the law office of Messrs. Boardman & 
Finch, leading practitioners in that section of the State. The former 
now occupies a seat on the Supreme Bench of the State, and the latter 
is the author of "The Blue and the Gray" and other well-known literary 
works of merit. Mr. Terry graduated with honor in 1861, standing 
high in his class. 

But the war between the two sections of the country had now broken 
out ; society throughout the entire Union had been shaken to its very 
foundation ; the partisans of each section were rushing to arms ; men of 
all classes were girding up their loins and buckling on their armor eager 
for the fray ; and it is not at all surprising that this universal spirit of 



584 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

war aroused a great desire in the breast of young Terry, to join the 
thousands rushing to the defense of Washington and the Union. 
Although young, he was full of ardor and patriotism, and was not slow 
in responding to the call of the Governor of New York for troops, and 
he immediately raised a company, afterward known as Company D, 
One Hundred and Thirty-seventh New York Regiment. He proved 
himself possessed of all the qualities of a soldier ; ardent, impulsive and 
passionate, he never faltered when in the hour of danger, and never 
wavered when duty called. He served in the Army of the Potomac, 
participating in all the battles in which this army took a part, until 
incapacitated from further service by being wounded at the battle of 
Chancellorsville. Captain Terry, after being wounded, resigned his 
commission and retired to private life. 

Thus at the close of the war he found himself an invalid. He 
remained some time in Washington and at his home in New York State. 
Having sufficiently recuperated to travel, he started on a tour of the 
western country for the purpose of finding a suitable location to practice 
his profession. He temporarily located at Ravenna, Ohio, principally 
to review and repolish the studies he had so long neglected. 

In 1865 Mr. Terry came to St. Louis, when the extent of his worldly 
possessions was carried in his vest pocket, and amounted to $30 cash, 
without friends, without acquaintances of any description, but with a 
large stock of indomitable energy and a firm determination to succeed. 
During the winter of 1865-6, he delivered a course of law lectures at 
Bryant & Strattons' Commercial College in this city. He also served 
as Assistant United States Attorney with Charles G. Mauro, and finally 
formed the law partnership of Terr}^ & Terry. 

In the fall of 1868 Mr. Terry was married to Elizabeth, only daughter 
of Hon. Albert Todd, one of St. Louis' most honored citizens. His 
family at present consists of three boys. Mrs. Terry is a lady of much 
intelligence as well as refinement, and well worthy, not only of the man 
whose name she bears, but of the stock from which it descended. 

About the same time, he was elected to the Twenty-fifth General 
Assembly, and formed one of the insignificant minority of Democrats 
who had to breast the storm of an overwhelming Radical majority ; 
yet he stood to his post manfully, and never evaded his duties. In 
187 1, he was appointed land commissioner, a judicial position of much 
importance, in St. Louis, for the condemnation of private property for 
public use : an ofiice he filled to the entire satisfaction of the St. Louis 
public. In 1874, ^^^ ^"^'^^ elected to the State Senate, by a large ma- 



JOHN H. TERRY. 585 

jority. During the session of 1875 l^^s name is to be found on many 
of the most important senatorial committees, an indefatigable worker 
in the committee room and in the Senate chamber, and finishing up the 
arduous labors of a protracted session in the State Board of Equaliza- 
tion. A faint idea may be formed of his labors during this session, 
when it is stated that he was chairman of the Committee on Accounts 
and Criminal Jurisprudence, a member of the Committee on Ways and 
Means, Swamp Lands, Blind Asylum, and Insurance. During his term 
of service in the Twenty-fifth General Assembly, he introduced, and 
carried through, the present insurance law of the State: a measure of 
much importance, and greatly to the benefit of the people at large. 

Gifted with a commanding person and winning manners, a clear, 
forcible speaker, and a keenly observant, and discerning mind, with 
legal abihties of a superior order, Mr. Terry occupies a position among 
the first ranks of his fellow-citizens, and was looked upon, and justly 
so, as one of the most influential as well as efficient members of the 
State Senate. Notwithstanding all his natural advantages, he has been 
obliged to put forward all his energies in the great struggle of life, and 
he has his own efforts and industry to thank for his success. 

In the exercise of his judicial duties, he saw the necessity for a gen- 
eral law for the condemnation of property for public uses, and earnestly 
applied himself to the construction of such a law as should most fully 
conserve the delicate and confficting interests with which he had to 
deal. The result of his labors appears in the present law governing 
the condemnation of property in St. Louis for public purposes. 

Such is the active and honorable record of Hon. John H. Terry, 
at every step of which he is found respected and esteemed, not alone 
for his services in the legislative halls of the State or on the bench, 
but the elevated tone and purity of his life and character ; and to-day, 
in the prime of his life, in the full maturity of his intellectual powers, 
he is one of the men his fellow-citizens choose to honor, whose regard 
and confidence he enjoys in a marked degree. 



JAMES ANDREWS. 



/TV HIS name would imply a Scottish origin. James Andrews was 
_L born on the banks of the Nith, near the famous town of Dumfries, 
October 7, 1S28. His father was a farmer, in well-to-do circum- 
stances, and reared a family of six children — three bo3^s and three girls, 
of which James was the eldest of the boys. 

When quite young, his mother died, so that the rearing and early 
education of the little famil}' depended upon the father. The educa- 
tional advantages of Mr. i\ndrews were exceeding^ limited, and were 
only such as those afforded by the common schools of the vicinity ; and 
between work and school he had but comparatively little time to devote 
to the latter, while of the former there was plenty to do, and hard work 
at that. His calling was that of a stone mason, in which occupation so 
many persons in the vicinity of his home were engaged. 

In the year 1840, his father concluded to dispose of his farm and 
remove to America, having, prior to leaving Scotland, decided to settle 
in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Reaching New York in the fall of 1840, 
the family proceeded at once to their place of destination, where the 
son was shortl}^ afterward enabled to secure work at his trade of a stone 
mason, at which employment he worked diligently for three years at a 
compensation of twelve dollars per month, paying his own expenses. 

During these years of hard work he was not unmindful of the 
deficiency in his early mental culture, and occupied all his spare 
moments in the reading and study of such useful books as he was able 
to obtain. His nights were passed in the seclusion of his room, gaining 
all the information he could toward perfecting himself in the art of a 
practical stone mason, and in such other studies as would prove of 
great value to him in after life. He was not addicted to any of those 
vices so common among his young fellow-workmen, and incredible as 
it ma}^ seem, he has never in his life tasted a drop of any spirituous or 
malt liquors. His close application to work, and his correct habits and 
gentlemanly deportment, could not fail to attract attention, and after 
working as a journeyman part of one season, at the age of twenty 



588 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

years, he formed a partnership with a practical stone mason, which 
partnership continued for one year, when it was dissolved, and he 
continued business on his own account as a contractor for mason work. 
Among the earliest contracts he received was the mason work of the 
railroad bridge across the Monongahela, at Pittsburgh, a work which 
he accomplished successfully, and to the entire satisfaction of all the 
parties interested. He subsequently contracted for a large amount of 
work on the old Pan Handle Railroad, and had contracts for building 
four tunnels, besides other kindred works, for the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company. He completed the mason and stone work for the first 
railroad bridge across the Ohio River, at Steubenville, which was the 
second bridge which spanned any of our great navigable streams — the 
hr'idge at Rock Island having been the first great structure of its kind. 
His experience on great works has been extensive and varied, and the 
numerous enterprises he has undertaken and completed, attest his 
genius and skill, and will long stand as enduring monuments to his 
memory. 

His grandest achievement, however, was yet to be accomplished. 
The first work for constructing the Illinois and St. Louis Bridge was 
put under contract in August 1867, Mr. Andrews being the contractor. 
Previously, he had visited St. Louis to examine the plans of the 
bridge ; visited all the stone quarries of importance in the State ; and 
finally made up his mind to bid for the work of building the piers. 
Numerous other stone masons were here from various parts of the 
country, who, after examining the plans, decided that the work required 
to be done was one of such magnitude that they would not undertake it. 
The result was that the only bid handed in was the one drawn up by 
Mr. Andrews, and to him the contract was awarded. As a full 
'description of this great work is given elsewhere, it is not deemed 
necessary to enter here into the details of the construction of the piers . 

Mr. Andrews is a man of great natural abilities. He is far-seeing, 
full of resources in cases of emergency, and prompt in action. He is 
slow to make up his mind, but shows the greatest vigor and persever- 
ance after he once has taken hold of any work. He gives all his work 
his unremitting personal supervision, being always on the ground before 
his men arrive, and never leaving it until they have left. He requires 
ot his men steady work and gets it, for the reason that he is a man who 
regards his obligations as sacred and pays those in his employ with the 
utmost promptness. During the six years he was at work on the bridge, 
under the special supervision of Colonel Henry Flad, chief assistant 



JAMES ANDREWS. 589 

engineer of the corps under the direction of Captain James B. Eads, 
there was never heard of a day's delay in the payment of the large 
force of men in his employ. 

Mr. Andrews has in his service a number of men to whom he pays 
extraordinarily high wages, but in whom he can implicitly rely. If any 
dangerous work is to be performed, Mr. x\ndrews does not stay away, 
but is always to be found at the point of the greatest danger. He never 
requires his men to go where he is afraid to lead. By his long and 
varied experience as a contractor, he has collected an astonishing 
amount of practical knowledge in civil and mechanical engineering, 
and as his leisure moments are all spent in reading, he has acquired a 
good stock of theoretical information. In his contracts with other men 
he likes to drive a good bargain, but if he ever signs his name to any 
contract, he will never fail to carry it out to the letter, no matter 
whether it be a profitable one or riot. 

In 1874, ^^'- Andrews, in company with Captain Eads, visited 
Europe to inspect the great parallel dykes, or "jetties," at the mouth 
of the Danube, the Vistula, Dnieper, Oder and several other rivers, 
with a view of assisting Captain Eads in the construction of similar 
structures at the mouth of the Mississippi, for which great work he is 
now the only contractor. 

Mr. Andrews is now in the prime of life ; endowed with a vigorous 
constitution and large brain; full of energy; and, moreover, by his 
industry and enterprise has acquired a handsome fortune. It may 
safely be predicted that before many years he will be one of the leading 
men of the nation, as far as pubhc works are concerned. Although 
Alleghany City, Pennsylvania, claims the homestead of Mr. Andrews, 
his great work here, on the Illinois and St. Louis bridge, has made him 
a resident of St. Louis for the past seven years, and he very properly 
occupies a place as a leading representative man in this volume. In 
connection with the bridge, Mr. Andrews became a contractor for the 
great tunnel which passes from the bridge under a portion of the city 
to the Union Depot buildings on Poplar street. He took the contract 
for the completion of this tunnel after the original contractors had 
failed to comply with the terms of their contract, and, in the face of 
many obstacles, carried it through to a successful completion. 

On Saturday, April 17, 1875, the first practical step for the deepen- 
ing of a channel at the mouth of the Mississippi, by the construction 
of jetties, was taken, by Captain Eads letting the contract for construct- 
ing three hundred and fifty thousand yards of fascine work, and one 



590 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



hundred thousand cubic yards of stone work, to Mr. James Andrews, 
the subject of this sketch ; and his previous works are a sufficient guar- 
antee that under his management the work of the jetties will be pushed 
forward with all possible dispatch. By the terms of the contract, he is 
to furnish at his own cost steamers, tugs, barges, boats, pile-drivers and 
all the necessary appliances, and is to put in sixty thousand yards of the 
work before he receives any pay. As the work progresses, he is to 
receive $300,000, the balance to be paid him only after the Government 
pays Captain Eads. One condition of Mr. Andrews' contract is, that 
he is to do. as much as is necessarj^ to insure twent3"-six feet water, and 
construct the amount of work specified for $2,500,000. A part of this 
compensation, however, is only to be paid after thirty feet of water is 
secured. 

In closing this sketch, it is not too much to say that Mr. Andrews is 
one of the best engineering contractors living, and in energy and enter- 
prise is not surpassed by any one of any occupation. 



A. J. CONANT. 



IRT-TASTE has developed rapidly in St. Louis during the past 
decade. For many years there were patrons of art, but the num- 
ber of those who purchased pictures painted at home was com- 
paratively small until the beginning of the period named. The older 
inhabitants remember with pleasure the artist, De Franca, who remained 
with them so many years, painting the portraits of the more prominent 
and wealthy citizens ; and the occasional visits of Chester Harding, Sen., 
were hailed with delight, as he always left in some homes evidences of 
the rare skill which he possessed in portrait-painting. A few others, 
skilled in the painter's art, came now and then, — painted a picture or 
two, and went to explore new fields. It was fashionable among the 
wealthy who traveled abroad, to have portraits as well as other pictures, 
painted by foreign artists. They paid good round prices, but did not 
always get good pictures. Since the permanent location in the city of 
artists of skill and education, an interest has been awakened in their 
efforts, and the disposition is growing to patronize home art, whenever 
it is meritorious, in preference to foreign productions. And yet it is a 
singular fact, that those who encourage our artists most, by purchasing 
their pictui"es, buy most largel}" of the best foreign works. 

In the progress of art-taste in St. Louis, the name of A. J. Conant 
should ever be remembered. Being the oldest artist now living in the 
city, he has done more to educate the public mind on the subject than 
any one else, and has probably produced a larger number of works 
than any other. He is unquestionably at the head of the profession in 
the West in the specialty of portrait-painting, and, like many others who 
are masters in what they have undertaken, has passed up through all 
the grades, fighting difficulties inch by inch as he went. His history is 
an interesting one, and deserves to be recorded. 

Among the names mentioned in early colonial history, by Cotton 
Mather, Palfrey, and other writers, is that of Roger Conant, who came 
over from England in 1624, to aid in establishing and governing the 
colonies. He was a man of education, sterling integrity, and firmness 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of character, and must have been held in high esteem by the people, 
for, not long after his arrival, we find that he was placed as governor 
over a colony near where the town of Salem, Massachusetts, now is. 
This colony had been a very troublesome one, indulging in factional 
and family quarrels to such an extent as to endanger its existence. 
Several gentlemen had tried to govern it, but gave it up as a hopeless 
task. Roger Conant, in a few months, smoothed things out, and 
induced the colonists to live at peace with each other. The town where 
the colony was located received the name of Salem (peace) from the 
fact. 

Roger Conant had a son named Exercise, and the regular descend 
ants after this son were Caleb, Benajah, Jonathan, Caleb, and the sub- 
ject of this sketch. The name, it should be stated, was first mentioned 
in the time of William the Conqueror, and was spelled Quoinant, being 
of French origin. 

Alban Jasper Conant was born in the town of Chelsea, Orange 
county, Vermont, on the 24th of September, 1821. His father was a 
house and sign painter, but cultivated some land, and not only worked 
with his own hands, but brought up his children to work. He abhorred 
idleness, and therefore Alban was kept constantly at work when not 
attending the district school. However distasteful this may have been 
to him, it was a benefit in one way : it gave him a strong, healthy con- 
stitution with which to bear life's burdens and fifjht its battles. When 
fifteen years of age, he was seized with a strong desire for an educa- 
tion, and finding a place where he could work for his board, com- 
menced a course of studies to prepare himself for college. He availed 
himself of such opportunities for study as he could until eighteen years 
of age, when, securing a country school, he taught it for eleven dollars 
per month, and "boarded around." The three months' term gave him 
money enough to go to Randolph Academy for a time, where he con- 
tinued his classical studies. At this time he wrote poetry and short 
articles for the rural press, and evinced a decided taste for literature. 
One of his poetical pieces was read on examination day, and received 
favorable criticism. About this time, he also began to draw sketches, 
and to paint the portraits of his schoolmates. His first efibrts were 
crude, but highly appreciated by his friends, and considered evidences 
of genius. But his money gave out, and he was obliged to go back to 
farming to replenish his purse. He remembers how hard he worked at 
this time for the meagre pittance of fifteen dollars a month, but the 
hope of something better in the future spurred him on, and he went 



A. J. CONANT. 593 

about his work uncomplainingly. While working in the iields, he 
looked at the lofty mountain peaks of his native State, and longed to 
know what was in the great world beyond them. As he studied the 
forms and outlines of mountain, hill, stream and tree, day after day, his 
mind was filled with wonderful thoughts and theories, and his moral 
nature expanded in contemplating the source of all this grandeur in 
nature. 

After several months of farming, he left home on foot to find a 
district school to teach. He went as far as Helena, on St. Regis River, 
St. Lawrence County, New York, and found a school needing a 
teacher. The committee-men informed him that they needed a strong, 
healthy man to whip the big boys more than anything else, and as he 
answered the description, they employed him, without inquiring into 
his literary qualifications. He did not, however, have much whipping 
to do, and the "big boys" liked him exceedingly well. Having, by 
teaching and other labor, acquired some means, he resumed his studies 
at a first-class institution in St. Lawrence County, taking an eclectic 
course. Mr. Conant was at this time a good vocalist, and had some 
knowledge of instinimental music. He utilized these accomplishments 
b}" teaching pupils during the week, clnd leading choirs on the Sabbath. 
Up to this time he had never seen an artist, and knew nothing of com- 
bining colors, or of the rules of art ; yet his passion for painting 
increased, and he was constantly drawing sketches of familiar scenes, 
and portraits of his friends. Some of these pictures were sold for five 
dollars apiece, and he thought it was a good price. 

There came along in his neighborhood an artist from New York, 
who painted several portraits, talked much of art and artists, and men- 
tioned the Academy of Design. In short, this artist filled Mr. Conant's 
head with new and wonderful ideas, and made him desire more and 
more to become an artist. His school tuition and board had consumed 
all his money, but, borrowing a small amount of a friend, he started for 
New York City in June 1844, determined to learn something of the 
mysteries of art. On inquiring at some of the picture galleries for the 
prominent artists of the city, he was directed to Mr. Henry Inman, who 
was at that time at the head of his profession. That gentleman received 
him kindly, but could not take him as a pupil, as he was on the eve of 
departure for England, for the benefit of his health, which had become 
much impaired. Mr. Inman, in a few hours' conversation with the 
young student, ascertained the extent of his knowledge of art, and the 
plans he had for the future. He gave him some excellent advice, a 

38 



594 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



few simple rules to follow, related some of his own experiences, and 
dismissed him with many kind and encouraging words. 

Mr. Conant thinks his talk with Inman did him more good than any 
other lesson he ever received. It convinced him that he who would be 
a true disciple in art, science or religion, must lirst become as a little 
child. He determined to commence at the elementary principles of art 
and then work his way up. After spending some time in New York, 
he concluded to select some smaller place in which to earn a living. 
He went to Troy, and procured employment as a teacher of vocal 
music and chorister, and in a short time opened a studio. From time 
to time, he visited New York City, studied works of art, and took 
lessons from the best artists. Mr. Conant remained in Troy twelve 
years, during which time he was married. 

In 1857, on account of the health of his wife, he made a journey to 
the West, and, in the course of his travels, stopped at St. Louis. He 
was so much pleased with the place, that he concluded to settle here. 
De Franca and Boyle were doing something in portrait-painting, but art 
w^as in its infancy in this city. It was not long after he had established 
himself here, that he began to agitate the question of starting an art 
gallery. Boyle was enthusiastic over the project, and co-operated with 
him heartily. In i860, the Western Academy of Art was established 
at the northeast corner of Fourth and Washington avenue, with Conant 
as one of the principal managers. It was a creditable collection of art 
treasures, containing rare statuary, casts and engravings from Europe, 
besides a good collection of paintings from home and foreign artists. 
The war came on, however, and this art collection was scattered. The 
rooms were taken for military headquarters, and the treasures of art 
were lost. 

In the meantime, Mr. Conant had gained a firm foothold in the city. 
He painted portraits of some of the most prominent citizens, and his 
work gave great satisfaction. For a time during the civil war his labor 
was interrupted, and he visited the Eastern States. He received com- 
missions to paint portraits of Hon. Edward Bates, Attorney-General, and 
members of his famil}^ ; Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, and others. 

His bust portrait of President Lincoln, painted a short«time previous 
to this, and now in the possession of our esteemed fellow-citizen. 
Captain James B. Eads, is, without doubt, the only portrait of the 
deceased President which presents him in his pre-eminently social 
aspects. 



A. J, CONANT. 595 

Since the war, Mr. Conant has resided in St. Louis constantly, and 
has been kept busy from year to year filling orders for portraits. He 
has painted chiefly family pictures, but several portraits of well-known 
citizens have been ordered by public institutions, and may be seen at 
the State University, Chamber of Commerce, in the Capitol at Wash- 
ington, and many other places. The more prominent ones in this 
city are those of Henry and Edgar Ames, John J. Roe, the late 
Mr. Von Phul and Wm. M. McPherson. Although Mr. Conant has 
made portrait-painting a specialty, he has frequently indulged in figure- 
painting and landscapes with a good degree of success. 

His portraits are distinguished for individuality, purity of tone and 
faithfulness of detail. He first studies the character of the person he 
is to paint ; learns what is the accustomed expression of countenance ; 
gains a knowledge of the habits and manners of his sitter ; then makes 
what he has observed a careful study. In form and outline he is sel- 
dom at fault, and in coloring and portraying character he excels. In 
child-pictures he has been especially successful, reproducing sometimes 
after the death of the little one, from photograph, perhaps, the loved 
features, radiant with smiles and innocent beauty. Many homes made 
sad by bereavement have had their happiness in part restored by these 
life-like pictures. 

Mr. Conant occupies a high social position in the city. He has 
learned much from books, and converses instructively on what he 
has studied. He has lectured much before colleges and seminaries 
of learning on aesthetic culture, ancient art, and kindred topics. 

For many years, he has employed all time not demanded by his 
profession to the antiquities of pre-historic arts and peoples, confining 
his investigations in the main to the ancient monuments and remains 
of America ; and the results of his labors, especially his own explora- 
tions of the mounds of the Mississippi Valley, he purposes, ere long, to 
give to the world in permanent form. 

His position for several years as one of the curators of the State 
University, brought him into close relationship with men of influence 
and learning, by whom he is held in high esteem. While in that 
position, he labored earnestly for the advancement of the University, 
and suggested many plans to increase its usefulness and enhance its 
prosperity. He contributed very largely, during the eight years of his 
official life, to the present and prospective success of this important 
institution of learning. 

He is a religious man, from conviction and principle, and has done 



hq5 biographical sketches . 

much in the city to build up a healthy religious sentiment; but he 
believes in a cheerful Christianity which enters closely into human 
sympathies and actions. His devotion to art will never separate him 
from friends, nor cause him to lose interest in anything that concerns 
the welfare of his fellow-men. The many trials of hfe may have added 
a few gray hairs to his head, but his heart is young, and he is quite as 
enthusiastic in his noble profession as ever. 



JOSEPH PULITZER. 



OF the German element, which goes so far to make up the wealth, 
intellect and business capacity of the commercial metropolis of 
the Mississippi Valle}', probabW no man stands more prominent 
before the public, as an example of the success attendant upon indus- 
trious effort, backed up by intelligence and well-directed ability, than 
Hon. Joseph Pulitzer, late editor and part proprietor of the Wcst- 
liche Post. 

Mr. Pulitzer was born at the parental country-seat, on the beautiful 
blue Danube, near Vienna, and is probably the youngest of the public 
men of Missouri. He was educated in the Austrian capital — Vienna — 
and passed through a regular classical course under private tutors of 
eminence in that city. At a very early age he volunteered in the 
militar}^ service of his country, then embroiled in the Schleswig- 
Holstein difficulty, which lasted long enough to give young Pulitzer an 
ardent desire for the profession. Peace prevailed in Europe, but the 
American Continent presented the appearance of one vast militarj'^ 
encampment, and offered the most alluring enticements to one desirous 
of military glor}^ 

In 1864 young Pulitzer, forced b}^ the death of his father, who had 
left instead of the fortune expected, a very complicated estate, to 
depend on his individual efforts for a livelihood, came to America, and 
the first day on American soil found him enrolled a private in the First 
New York Lincoln Cavalry. He served during the remainder of the 
war, his regiment taking part in the battles of Winchester, Cedar' 
Creek, Five Forks, and other hard-fought fields, escaping with a flesh 
wound. At the declaration of peace he received an honorable dis- 
charge, and, after many romantic experiences, made his wa}- to 
St. Louis, a perfect stranger, without friends or means, and still unable 
to speak the language of the countr}'. Then began a series of novel 
phases in his career which resemble more nearly the details of a highly 
sensational novel than the supposed realities of an every-day life. 

During the year that succeeded the war, striving for the best, and 



598 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

3^et glad to accept any employment which promised a subsistence, he 
enjoyed the luxury of being a hostler at Benton Barracks, a fireman on 
one of the Wiggins ferry-boats, a laborer on the levee in East St. Louis, 
the driver of a gentleman's private carriage, and the quasi sexton of the 
cholera cemetery on Arsenal Island. Such were a few of the phases 
of existence Mr. Pulitzer passed through during his first year's residence 
in St. Louis. But in the midst of all these discouragements he never 
forgot his manhood, nor ever looked upon "honest labor" as a stigma 
or stain upon the character of an honest man. He ever kept in view 
that his ignorance of our language was the greatest drawback to his 
success, and never lost an opportunity of improving himself therein. 

At last an opportunity presented itself which bade fair to be a step- 
ping-stone to prosperity. Large grants of land had been made by the 
United States Government to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad along 
their contemplated route. It was necessary that these lands should be 
duly recorded in the name of the Company at the different county seats, 
from St. Louis to the Indian Territory. To do this properly, the journey 
had to be made on horseback. It was at that period when the State 
was overrun with lawless bands of guerrillas, who, upon the close of the 
war, returned with arms for the purpose of plunder and pillage. The 
mission, therefore, was no very desirable one. It was offered to Mr. 
Pulitzer, who readily undertook it. He filled it to satisfaction, and it 
proved lucrative. 

Returning to St. Louis and fostering what little means he found at 
his command, he immediately began the study of law. He soon 
attracted the attention of Hon. Carl Schurz, and the other proprietors 
of the Wcstlichc Post, who offered him a position on the editorial corps 
of that journal. At last he had found a position in which his early 
education and undoubted abilities could make themselves felt. He 
proved a happy accession to the staff. A clear and lucid writer, a 
strong believer in republican institutions, perfectly enthusiastic in his 
admiration of popular liberties and his inclination for the honorable 
contests of public life, his articles attracted more than ordinary atten- 
tion from the German-reading portion of our population, and were not 
unfrequently translated and published, as the "Opinions of the German 
Press,'" in the English dailies. Step by step he rose, and his hitherto 
contracted sphere of usefulness began to widen ; little by little he made 
his influence felt through the columns of his paper, until at last, and at 
the expiration of six years, the quondam grave-digger of Arsenal Island, 
the laborer on the levee in East St. Louis, the carriage-driver of other 



JOSEPH PULITZER. 599 

days, found himself the editor and part proprietor of the most influ- 
ential German journal of the West. 

The paper favored the Gratz Brown bolt in 1870, and acted with the 
Liberals in the Greeley movement. After the Greeley disaster in 1872, 
Mr. Pulitzer, on account of some political differences with the other 
proprietors, severed his editorial connection with the paper, but con- 
tinued part owner until 1875, when he sold his interest, realizing there- 
from a competency. 

To Mr. Pulitzer, more than to any other man. is due the credit of 
the liberalization of political sentiment in Missouri. Previous to 1870 
the Republican or Radical party was in power, and in all candor it 
must be admitted, ruled with an iron hand. The Drake Constitution 
bristled with proscriptive provisions. To have been in opposition to 
the Federal cause, or to have S3'mpathized with those who took up arms 
against it, wrought disfranchisement and disability. Mr, Pulitzer, 
although in hearty sympathy with the humanitarian tenets of the 
Republican party, was of too independent a mind to subscribe to such 
proscriptive demands. He was not and could not be a mere partisan, 
blindly submitting to the '^orders in council" of accidentally installed 
leaders. He not only revolted from such tyranny, but made his revolt 
memorable. He was the animating spirit among the Germans, and 
labored unceasingly, with his pen and on the stump, to unite them 
solidly against the party with which, for ten years they had so solidly 
acted. The result could not have been otherwise than gratifying. 
Their separation from the intolerant portion of the Radical party was 
complete. Almost as one man they voted for the Liberal candidate 
for Governor, for enfranchisement and the removal of all political dis- 
abilities, and broke forever the power of those who endeavored to 
maintain a political organization on the basis of hatred of their oppon- 
nents. 

Out of the Brown campaign of 1870 grew the Greeley campaign of 
1872. It was Mr. Pulitzer who, with one other gentleman, drew up 
the call for a National Liberal Convention. 

He was elected a delegate to the memorable Cincinnati assemblage, 
and was one of the most prominent as well as one of the most influential 
members of that body. 

Since 1867, Mr. Pulitzer has been prominently before the people. 
In 1869, he was elected to the Legislature from the Fifth district, 
being the youngest member of that body, and probably the youngest 
naturalized citizen ever elected to any American Legislature. During 



6oO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

his term of office, he was indefatigable in his endeavors to pass just 
such laws as were, in his judgment, salutary to the country at large. 
In 1870, he was appointed by Governor B. Gratz Brown, and unani- 
mously confirmed by the State Senate, one of the members of the 
Board of Police Commissioners for St. Louis, a position of no mean 
importance and responsibility. In December 1874, ^^ ^^^^ elected to 
the Constitutional Convention of 1875. He was the youngest, and 
proved one of the most active members of that body in framing a 
supreme law for the State. 

In 1874, ^1'- Pulitzer astonished a good many of the slow-going 
people of St. Louis by becoming one morning the proprietor of the 
Staats Zeitung, a newspaper which was started with considerable pre- 
tension and large capital, to break down the Post, which was then, as 
it is now, the leading German paper of the West. In less than two 
days he transferred the Zc/timg- press franchise, at a decided pecuniary 
advantage, to the Globe, and exterminated a threatening business rival. 
Mr. Pulitzer has shown on several other occasions a remarkable 
"Yankee" aptitude for profitable speculations, and, as a result, has 
added not only to his valuable stock of business experience, but to his 
fortune as well. 

With the exception of his labors in the Constitutional Convention, 
Mr. Pulitzer has, for the past two years, given his attention to the study 
of law and literature. 

In the Convention, to which he was elected by the Democracy of the 
two most populous wards of the city of St. Louis, and by the largest 
majority ever given to a Democratic candidate, Mr. Pulitzer, on all gen- 
eral matters, acted with that party throughout. An early agitator of the 
plan of uniting the city and county governments in one, which inde- 
pendently were not only cumbersome, but expensive, he was enabled to 
bring forward a scheme for their union, which, with a few immaterial 
changes, was unanimously adopted by the Convention, and will be as 
unanimously ratified by the people at the polls. This, of itself, is a 
service which would entitle the subject of our sketch to no mean place 
in the regard of his fellow-citizens, and serves to show the practical 
bent of his mind, as well as the utilitarian character of his education. 
We doubt if there has yet appeared in our political history a foreigner 
who has so rapidly and thoroughl}'- assimilated himself to the American 
idea of government, and who, without in anywise turning his back upon 
the traditions of his native land, has become more thoroughly or under- 
standingly a citizen of the new. 



J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R . 6oi 

Since success has crowned his labors in America, he has made several 
visits to Europe. He was in Paris on the i6th of July 1870, and heard 
the declaration of war against Germany read in the French Assembly, 
a declaration which proved so disastrous to the French nation, and 
ultimately cost Napoleon the Third his Empire. 

Considering the short time Mr. Pulitzer has been in America, and 
the obstacles he has had to overcome in conquering the English lan- 
guage, he is a fluent and pleasing speaker, and can justly lay claims to 
great force as an orator. As a journalist and writer, both in the English 
and German tongues, he stands high. As his past has been exceed- 
nigly brilliant for one so young, his future gives promise of still greater 
achievements. 



JOSEPH R. MEEKER. 



^V O study is more interesting or profitable to the reflective mind than 
\ the unfolding and development of American character. In no 
country, perhaps, except our own, are to be found so many 
instances of individual success over poverty and early disadvantages. 
Sometimes genius is crushed in the bud, and ambitious young men 
struggling for success have been turned from their purposes by the 
scorn, contumely and plots of others ; but, as a general rule, the boys 
of true grit and real genius have triumphed over all obstacles, made 
friends of those who hindered them, and gained the distinction which 
their talents merited and their ambition sought. The history of the 
distinguished landscape painter. Meeker, affords instances in proof of 
this statement, and presents examples worthy of imitation by young 
men who feel that they should pursue a certain profession for which 
nature has designed them. 

Joseph Russling Meeker was born on the 21st day of April 1827, 
in Newark, New Jersey. His paternal ancestors came from Belgium 
in 1640, and settled Norwalk, Connecticut. John Meker (as the name 
was then spelled) was granted a tract of land, ten miles long and one 
mile wide, which was known in old surveys as ""Meeker's Tract." A 
branch of the family, afterward, settled and named Fairfield, Conn., 
and in that town the old family Bible may yet be seen. About one 
hundred years after John Meker landed at Norwalk, man}- New Eng- 
landers went down into New Jersey and settled what was called 
"Connecticut Farms," and the title is still preserved. 

On the maternal side, Mr. Meeker's grandfather, Josleyne, was one 
of three brothers who settled in New Jersey after the Revolution. 
The name has been corrupted into plain Joline. This grandfather 
was an artist of no mean pretensions, and made a sketch of Wash- 
ington on horseback at Rahway, in 1775, when he passed through 
New Jersey on his way to Cambridge to take command of the army. 
His son Andrew became an artist, and was a pupil of Nagel, of 
Philadelphia. The Valentines, on the mother's side, were Scotch, 



604 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and settled, with other emigrants, what was called "Scotch Plains," 
in New Jersey. The Meekers and Valentines have scattered them- 
selves broadcast over the Western country, but the Jolines have never 
left their original resting places about Staten Island and the Jersey 
shore, on both sides of Princess Bay. 

The parents of Joseph R. Meeker left New Jersey, and went to 
reside in Central New York about the year 1828, and have resided 
in the beautiful city of Auburn over forty years. It was here that 
he acquired the rudiments of an education, and here that he imbibed 
his first ideas of art. Being obliged to support himself from almost 
childhood, he entered a printing office at eleven years of age, and 
learned to set type, getting what schooling he could at odd intervals 
until sixteen years of age, when the art feeling became so strong 
that there was no resisting it, and he went into the establishment of 
a carriage-painter named Thos. J. Kennedy, (who afterward became 
a member of the Legislature of New York, and during the rebellion 
won a Colonel's eagle by good service.) Mr. Kennedy was some- 
thing of a decorator, and gave our young artist the use of such 
colors as he had, together with much good advice. Here he had 
to grind his own colors, prepare his owm canvas and make his own 
stretchers — and he even went so far as to manufacture a very useful 
easel and a pallet, which lasted him for many years. 

But, becoming ambitious, he soon found that Auburn was too small, 
and so, packed his slender stock of worldly goods and started for New 
York City, where he landed in the fall of 1845. Here he commenced 
drawing from casts, in order to gain a scholarship in the Academy of 
Design, The drawings were presented and accepted, and the winter 
season of 1845 found him hard at w^ork in the Antique Class. At that 
time, the Nestor of American landscape painters, A. B. Durand, was 
president of the Academy, and J. G. Chapman, secretary. During the 
two or three years he remained in New York,' he had hard work to 
earn money enough to pay for the scant}^ materials he was obliged to 
use ; and among the earliest sales he made were three or four small 
landscapes to a teacher named Hoyt, for four dollars each. The sum 
was petty, but it was a god-send, and the profit was considerable, owing 
to the fact that he made his own stretchers and prepared his own 
canvas. Mr. Hoyt's kindness will ever be remembered by Mr. Meeker, 
for he gave freely out of his slender means, and always had the greatest 
amount of sympathy for those who were toiling to gain a profession. 
After struggling in vain for three years, and having no one to look to lor 



JOSEPH R. MEEKER. 605 

assistance, Mr. Meeker tinally had to leave New York and go back home 
to Auburn. It was not much better there, however, and finally, after a 
year or so, he took up his residence in Buffalo. Here he met some 
excellent friends, and was quite successful in the sale of pictures. His 
prices advanced to a paying sum, and the American Art Union pur- 
chased man}' of his works. The Cosmopolitan Art Union sprang up at 
this time, and Mr. Derby, being an old friend, purchased many of his 
pictures and paid him good prices. Becoming restless again, and 
having romantic ideas of the Southern country, our artist wandered 
once more, and this time he found himself, in the winter of 1852, in the 
city of Louisville, Kentucky. Here he remained until 1859, and as the 
art unions were all broken up, he was obliged to resort to teaching to 
eke out a living. Some of the pleasantest years of his life were passed 
in Louisville. It was a most hospitable city, and the sociability of the 
people made it extremely agreeable for a young man in a strange land. 
In the fall of 1859, another wandering fit took possession of him, and he 
started on a voyage of discovery through a dozen large cities to try and 
find a better field for art. On arriving in St. Louis, something in her 
old-fashioned look, her narrow streets and quaint houses, struck his 
fancy, and here he resolved to pitch his tent. Finding Noble, Wimar, 
Boyle, Coggswell, De Franca and Conant all at work and seemingly 
prosperous, he was encouraged to think that he at last had found a 
home, and here he resolved to set up his easel for good. He took a 
studio on the corner of Fifth and Pine streets, and the first two pictures 
he painted were exposed at a store on Fourth street, kept by Mr. Baggs, 
but did not remain long before they were purchased by the late Edgar 
Ames. Mr. Meeker met with considerable encouragement until the 
war broke out, when all professions, especially that of the artist, being 
broken up, like many others he accepted service, and became a Pay- 
master in the United States Navy which position he retained for four 
years. It was during the time that he held this position on a gun-boat 
in the Mississippi Squadron, that he had opportunities for making those 
sketches of the Southern swamp scenery, that have made his name so 
well known. 

Since the close of the war, Mr. Meeker has steadily worked in his 
profession, only leaving the city occasionally during the summer 
months, and then to get material, by sketching and study of nature, for 
new pictures. The pictures illustrating Southern scenery first brought 
him into notice in St. Louis. Many old citizens were familiar with the 
cypress swamps, the hazy atmosphere over the lagoons, the hanging 



6o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

moss, and the solemn stillness of the water in the lakes of Louisiana 
and Mississippi ; and when they saw it all portrayed on canvas, so 
nearh^ resembling nature, they praised the pictures, and the artist 
who could produce them so faithfully. But the taste for works 
of art has not been cultivated to any considerable extent in St. Louis, 
and for several years few could be found who were willing to give a 
remunerative price for such pictures. Many who admired them were 
not able to purchase, while the wealthiest citizens, if they appreciated 
art at all, would buy pictures in Europe, Some artists would have 
become discouraged and sought a more appreciative field, and two or 
three artists of good talent did try it for a while and went to other cities ; 
but Mr. Meeker had given up "wandering," and made up his mind to 
stick to St. Louis under all circumstances. Now and then an enthusi- 
astic friend would buy a picture, and praise its excellence to others, 
who in turn caught the art spirit, and desired to become the pos- 
sessors of "a Meeker." Orders began to come in more frequently, and 
the heart of the artist was encouraged. He did not confine himself to 
swamp scenes, but often took subjects nearer at home, illustrating the 
scenery of Southeastern Missouri, the landscapes of the Osage and 
Gasconade rivers, and the great lead region of the Southwest. 

Mr. Meeker's pictures were placed on exhibition in the art depart- 
ment of the St. Louis Fair some years ago, and attracted much 
attention. They have been exhibited every year since, and form an 
important feature of the art collections. As his works became known, 
and as the taste for art developed in the city, the demand for his 
beautiful landscapes increased. He chose a wider range of subjects, 
taking in the Upper as well as Lower Mississippi, the mountains of New 
England, and the coast o Maine. St. Louis being peopled with 
immigrants from every section, made it necessary for him to select 
subjects to please the varied tastes ; and so the artist reproduced on 
canvas, for the homesick Yankee, the dear old peaks of Mt. Mansfield, 
the green valley of the Connecticut, the rock-bound coasts of Maine 
and New Hampshire ; for the Western man, the lakes of Wisconsin 
and Minnesota, and the blufis of the Upper Mississippi ; and for the 
admiration of all who love classic art, he produced ideal scenes as 
suggested in history and poetr3^ 

Of his ideal pictures the most noticeable are " The Vale of Cash- 
mere ;" two, illustrating Longfellow's poem of Evangeline, called "The 
Acadians in the Atchafalaya," and "The Noon-Day Rest ;" "The Lotus 
Eaters ;" "The Star of Bethlehem ;" and "I knew by the Smoke," illus- 
trating one of Tom Moore's American melodies. 



JOSEPH R. MEEKER. 607 

Some gentlemen of wealth in St. Louis have made collections of 
Meeker's pictures, purchasing one of each class of subjects he has 
illustrated. His landscapes have generally gone, one by one, into 
private houses, to take a place beside cherished family pictures, and 
contribute their share toward educating and refining the thoughts and 
affections of old and young. 

In all the landscape pictures which this artist has produced, there is 
the same faithful portraiture of nature ; the same harmony in detail ; a 
life-like glow in sky and water ; a richness of verdure in tree and grass ; 
and all the beauty of color which nature could give. He seldom paints 
nature when it is sick and pale, or in a state of decay, but prefers to 
illustrate it in glowing health and beauty. For this reason, his pictures 
are popular. Their freshness makes the heart glad and is pleasing to 
the eye. He employs none of the tricks of art so frequently used to 
make a showy picture, but gives honest labor to everything he attempts. 

Mr. Meeker's pictures are painted to live long after his brush is laid 
aside and his easel has gone to decay, and we doubt not that his pro- 
ductions will be found in many happy St. Louis homes, and wall be 
cherished as rare and beautiful specimens of the painter's art. 

He is, without doubt, the best landscape painter in the West, and 
in a general collection his pictures will compare favorably with those 
of any American artist. Whatever he has undertaken thus far, he has 
done carefully, honestly and well, and his ability to achieve still 
greater triumphs in art is not doubted. 

The citizens of St. Louis may well be proud of this artist, who 
has done so much to awaken a love for the beautiful in nature, and 
to illustrate points of interest in the Mississippi Valley with which 
their history is connected. 

Mr. Meeker is a student of books as well as of nature. His mind 
is well stored with poetry, history and classic lore, and he adds 
much to the literary society of St. Louis by his presence. He has 
been active in endeavoring to establish an art society in the city, 
and in disseminating correct views on art matters ; and, remember- 
ing the struggles of his early years, he is always ready to render 
assistance to young artists and others desirous of gaining an honorable 
position in society. 

Let us hope he may live long to enjoy the distinction he has fairly 
won, and that, with increasing years, he may accumulate wealth 
sufficient to make life comfortable and happy. 



M. M. FALLEN, M.D. 



TT is said of Dr. Jenning, who practiced a half century ago, that he 
had no faith in medicines. The reason he had no faith in medi- 
cines was because he knew nothing of them ; and yet he alwa3^s 
boasted that he had as much success in his practice as his colleagues, 
though he never gave anything but a bread pill. Here prudence saved 
him from the fatal results that might have followed had he attempted 
to use drugs. To-day the case is different, since success in medical 
practice depends chiefl}^ upon diligence. The physiological effects of 
medicines are no longer matters of speculation. The means to diagnose 
diseases are multiplying daily. Within the past five decades, the 
profession has been transformed. So numerous have become the dis- 
coveries and inventions, so vast the amount of knowledge obtained, 
that the time is not far distant when physicians will find it almost impos- 
sible to give their attention to more than one branch of the profession. 
Old theories, which once seemed to be infallible, have been exploded 
and forgotten. The phj^sician of to-day is a different being from the 
dispenser of medicines of fifty years ago ; then, the physician practiced 
and hoped for success, — now, he investigates and then practices ; for- 
merly, the physician's success was the result of good luck ; common 
sense served him well, and kept him from doing harm when he was not 
sure of doing good. The physician's calling is one that carries with it 
a most important trust, and stands on the level with the sacred office of 
the minister : for, while one represents the physical and the other the 
spiritual part of the work, it is really one — ministration to the wants 
both physical and spiritual. 

St. Louis claims in the profession many men of eminent acquirements, 
who have united a thorough knowledge of their calling with a sound 
moral and intellectual culture. Dr. M. M. Fallen, the subject of this 
sketch, has occupied a foremost position as a medical practitioner and 
professor in this city for a period of thirty-three years. He is a native 
of Virginia, having been born in King and Queen county in that State, 
on the 29th of April 1810. His father, Zalma Fallen, was a native of 
39 



6lO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Poland, and, in his early years, served as an officer in the French Rev- 
olution under the first Napoleon, and passed safely through the Italian 
campaign. He came to this country in the year 1800, and went to 
Virginia, where he married, and settled down as a merchant in the 
county of King and Queen. As a merchant his business prospered, 
and his means were ample enough to give his son the advantages of as 
good an education as the schools of that period could furnish. The 
earlier years of the life of his son were passed in acquiring the rudi- 
ments of an English education at the common schools of the day, so 
that, at the age of eighteen, he was prepared to enter the University of 
Virginia, where he was taught the languages, but became especially 
devoted to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy and metaphysics. 
Having become a graduate of the University in due course of time, he 
bethought him of pursuing a professional life, and for this purpose 
entered the office of his brother-in-law, in Richmond, the distinguished 
Dr. James Beale, who is still living. After remaining with him two 
years, he went to Baltimore, and entered the medical department of the 
University of Maryland, from which he graduated at the age of twenty- 
three. In leaving home he had but limited means, but he was indus- 
trious and self-reliant, and sought to defray his own expenses. He had 
to live with great economy, and to perfect himself in his profession. 
He was a diligent student, and was especially devoted to the sciences. 
He made everything that would tend to his advancement and profes- 
sional excellence an object of daily pursuit. 

In the year 1835, Dr. Fallen united his fortunes in marriage to those 
of Miss Janet Cockrell, the daughter of a Scotch gentleman residing 
in Baltimore at that time ; and then removed to Vicksburg, where he 
remained, following his profession, until 1842, w^hen he came to St. 
Louis to find a permanent home. Dr. Fallen had previously visited the 
city in 1838, when its population numbered only some 16,000 souls. 
Obtaining at once a home for his family. Dr. Fallen commenced the 
practice of his profession. His many accomplishments and skill as a 
physician soon attracted attention ; his practice became large and lucra- 
tive ; and in 1844 he was appointed Frofessor of Obstetrics in the 
medical department of the University of St. Louis — now the St. Louis 
Medical College — which had then been in operation only two years. 
Doctors Fope, Linton, Frout, Frather and Litton, were his colleagues in 
the University at this time, but all of these gentlemen have passed 
away, save the subject of this sketch and Dr. Litton, who occupies the 
chair of Chemistry in Washington University. 



M. M. FALLEN. 6l I 

Dr. Fallen's professorship in the University was signalized by marked 
ability. He never failed to admonish the students to stand firm against 
performing an operation which is classed among the most atrocious of 
crimes, and which is destined, unless checked, to undermine our entire 
social system. In 1869, on account of failing health. Dr. Fallen 
resigned his chair in the University. 

In 1844-45, in conjunction with Dr. John S. Moore, Dr. Fallen 
received the appointment of Health Officer of the city. At that time it 
was a part of the duties of this officer to attend the hospitals of the city, 
including the Small-pox Hospital. The office then was not a salaried 
one, and their services — save the nominal sum of one dollar per year — 
were gratuitous. They had the privilege of introducing the students of 
the medical colleges to the hospitals, which was a great advantage to 
them. While performing his duties in connection with the hospital. 
Dr. Fallen was a faithful worker, and made post-mortem examinations 
of all who died. At this time the city was far from being considered 
healthy. There were but few sewers built, and the natural drainage of 
the city was just about as bad as it well could be. Malarious diseases 
of a malignant type were exceedingly common. There was a great 
rush of immigration into the city, and many boats, in fact nearly all, 
that came up the river were full of typhus fever. The Hospital was 
crowded with patients of that character. The Hospital at that time was 
located at the corner of Fourth and Spruce streets, and belonged to the 
Sisters of Charit3^ This building was taken down in 1874, ^^^ the 
erection of the new Hospital on Grand avenue was mainly due to Dr. 
Fallen's efforts. 

Dr. Fallen was one of the earliest founders of the Academy of 
Sciences, and, in connection with Dr. McFheeters and Dr. Barnes, (the 
latter of whom has gone to his rest,) was one of the most active 
founders of the St. Louis Medical Society, which was established in 
the year 1849. ^^ ^^'^^ among the first in forming the St. Louis Uni- 
versity Club, and one of the first vice-presidents. Several Eastern 
associations in Massachusetts and one or two in Virginia, have elected 
him an honorary member. 

Through all these eventful and changing years. Dr. Fallen has stood 
faithfully at his post, and his work has been one of patient, persevering 
investigation. In the dark days of 1849, when that fatal malady, the 
cholera, was raging in the city in all its virulence, and nothing could 
stay its terrible progress, he was especially active in his attendance 
upon the sick and dying, and a vigilant co-worker with others in 



6l2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

devising means and securing the adoption of measures that would, if 
possible, stay the ravages of this dreadful disease. As a physician, he 
has always been honest with the patient, and if he did not need treat- 
ment, always told him so. He has been, in all his practice, a candid 
physician, and instinctively his patients have had laith in him. Where 
there is no faith there cannot be success. As a physician and a man. 
Dr. Fallen possesses the esteem and confidence of the community in 
which he has resided so many years. He has been a diligent student, 
and has watched closely the progress of the age in mechanics, the 
chemical and physical sciences, of which medicine forms an integral 
part. He is a ripe scholar, one of the best grammarians in the city, 
and reads Latin and Greek as fluently as in his early years. He has 
written much, and has been a liberal contributor of articles on various 
subjects to medical and other journals, and among them a series which 
attracted a good deal of attention, published in the Republican news- 
paper in this city, under the Greek head of " Efca Ptcrc Ontar 

Dr. Fallen is a man easily approached, sympathetic in his nature, 
generous in his disposition, independent in his judgment and action, 
and kind and courteous in all the walks of life. He has lived to see 
his family of six children grow up around him, and his sons, of whom 
he has four, occupying positions of honor and usefulness. His eldest 
son, Dr. Montrose A. Fallen, occupies the chair of Gynaecology in the 
University of New York. His eldest daughter married the late Felix 
McArdle, one of the most accomplished scientists of the day. 



CAPT. HENRY J. MOORE. 



(JjvOR many years previous to his death, Captain Moore was one 
-L of the most active and successful business men of the city of St. 
Louis. He retired from active merchandise about i860, and 
thereafter devoted his time to the care of his private estate. 

He was born in the State of New York on the 22d day of February 
1802, and died in St. Louis, Missouri, February 7, 1875. 

His first business in his native State was that of manufacturing furni- 
ture, at Havana. While there he married Miss Merc}^ Dennis, of 
Scipio. Not being contented with life in a quiet country town, he sold 
out and went first to Ithaca, and then to Troy ; in the latter place he 
was engaged in the jewelry trade. There he lost his wife (in 1833), 
and soon after he set out for Texas. He remained two years in Texas, 
when he returned to New York, and, in 1839, rn^^rried Miss Caroline 
Dunning, of Genoa. Being delighted with the climate and countr}^ of 
Texas, he went back there, accompanied by his uncle Samuel Moore, 
and Mr. D. M. Fitch. They took with them a stock of provisions, and 
lumber for finishing a store. They entered Matagorda Bay on the 
first of December 1839, ^^^ ^" January 1840, opened their store at 
Victoria. 

B}' his genial good humor, practical business sense and thorough 
knowledge of human nature, he soon became a general favorite 
in all the region about Victoria. No man was more successful in that 
country; but the tmies were troublesome. The Indians frequentl}' 
made raids into the towns, rendering his business precarious and his 
life one of constant anxiety for the safety of his family. 

Satisfied with frontier life, and convinced that a man of active busi- 
ness capacities can do best in the busy marts of civilization, he left 
Texas for Cincinnati in 1842. 

He there engaged in the business of packing beef for foreign 
markets. Whilst there, he met Captain John J. Roe, his cousin, whom 
he had not seen since they were both boys. Captain Roe was then 
building a steamboat at Cincinnati. Captain Moore disposed of his 



6l4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

packing business and engaged in steamboating with Captain Roe, 
making St. Louis headquarters, from which place they ran their boats 
to Cincinnati and New Orleans. Even at that date, 1845, Captain 
Moore was convinced that St. Louis would become, if not the future 
"Great City of the World," the future metropolis of the West. 

About this time he lost his wife, the mother of his only child. 

He followed the river a number of years, owning and running some 
of the largest boats of that time. He built the Sultana at Cincinnati ; 
she was fifteen hundred tons capacity, two hundred and eighty-five feet 
in length, forty-four feet beam and eight feet hold ; her cylinders were 
thirty inches in diameter and ten feet stroke. This was a successful 
boat : but meeting with a profitable ofter he sold her. He also ran the 
Wyandotte in the Missouri River trade. Whilst running down the 
Mississippi, she was sunk at a landing, the dangers of which Captain 
Moore cautioned the pilot just before going in. 

Nothing daunted, he built the Pocahontas and ran her himself very 
profitably ; after doing so for some time, he concluded to build another 
boat, and left her in charge of another captain, near the mouth of the 
Arkansas River, and took passage for Cincinnati to carry out his plan. 

While on his way up he received news that the very night after he 
left, his boat was burned. He then concluded to retire from a business 
which required personal attention and very arduous labor by the owner 
in order to make money for himself. He was at one time owner of, or 
largely interested in, the steamer Hannibal, whose engine was taken out 
of the first Jim White, and this latter boat made faster time than any 
other boat until recently. Her record was three da3^s, twent3^-three 
hours and nine minutes from St. Louis to New Orleans. 

It is acknowledged by all that Captain Moore left the river business 
with a reputation unsullied by any blemish, and that a high sense of 
honor and scrupulous honesty in all his dealings with all men, were his 
prevailing characteristics. 

In 1 85 1, he married Miss A. C. Dunning, sister of his second wife. 
After leaving the river, he was induced to engage with Mr. D. M. Fitch, 
of New York, in the importation and wholesale of watches and fine 
jewelry. This business was too confining, and unsuited to his taste, so 
he sold out and returned to his old home, St. Louis, where the steam- 
boat whistle mingled with the music of our city's increasing trade, filled 
him with the old ambition to be among the foremost in the world's com- 
mercial march. 

In 1857 he entered into business with Captain Roe, as a member of 



CAPTAIN HENRY J . MOORE. 615 

the firm of John J. Roe & Co., he being the only partner. They were 
packers of pork and general commission merchants. It was a popular 
firm, its character being recognized as among the best in the land. 

While thus engaged, he became interested in many of the best banks 
and other institutions, of the city. In the midst of war's alarms he 
was elected first president of the Union Merchants' Exchange, which 
was an organization of brave men, who believed the only salvation of 
the country was to stand b}" the Government, even though it might 
in some things have been at fault. He discharged the duties of the 
position in a manner that gave general satisfaction, though the times 
were such as to try the souls of the bravest and best of men. During 
the war he had charge of the shipping business conducted by the 
Custom House. The duties of this position required firmness and 
impartiality, but he was genial and good-natured to all, and retired 
from the post "with a reputation untarnished, and a high character for 
integrity and fair-dealing." He was a member of the "Old Guard," 
who were prepared in the most trying times of danger to obey any 
summons that might be served on them. 

For several years previous to his death, he had not been in active 
business as a merchanl, but was still connected with several of the best 
banks as stockholder, and on the board of one as visitor. The various 
institutions whose boards have spoken of him, unite in the same testi- 
mon}^ : that "in the death of this prominent citizen St. Louis lost one 
of her most honorable merchants, a gentleman whose many virtues will 
be long treasured by his social and commercial associates." 

He enjoyed the sports of hunting and fishing ; seldom failing in a 
shot, and few excelled him with the angling rod, even during the last 
year of his life. 

His family was small, and no man was more genial and happy in that 
relation than he ; and no man was ever more deeply lamented in his 
death, by those so long favored with his counsels. 



D. A. JANUARY. 



SKETCH of the life of D. A. January cannot but prove of 
great benefit to young men about to begin life, as an illustration 
of the power of energy and earnest purpose, to mark out a path 
for themselves, even in the face of limited opportunities. 

Mr. D. A. January was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in the year 
1813, and was one of a family of twelve children. His father, who 
was of French extraction, had come originally from Pennsylvania, and 
was engaged in merchandising. His mother was a Virginian by birth. 
The opportunities for an education offered to the young bo3\ were of a 
very meagre character. 

When thirteen years of age, he entered a store and began to lay the 
foundation of a business education, and the formation of that character 
which in after-life became the admiration of his fellow-citizens. Some 
few years afterward his father died, and his mother moved to Louisville, 
Kentucky, where young Januar}^ entered the office of the Louisville 
Advertiser, and for nearly two years worked as a printer's devil. The 
office was then under the direction of Shadrach Penn, who allowed the 
young man his board only for his labor. 

He then engaged in the dry goods store of Janus M. Clendennen, at 
a salary of $75 per year and board, where he remained for two years. 

In 1832, his mother removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, where, in con- 
nection with his brother, he opened a general store, with a capital of 
$1,000. In this new field of enterprise his business grew and prospered, 
and was continued without interruption until the winter of 1836-7, when 
the whole -family removed to St. Louis. Here Mr. January opened the 
wholesale grocery house of January, Stittinius & Bro., on the levee. 
The uniform prosperity which always attended his mercantile career, 
here received a new impetus, and has for a period of thirty-seven years 
remained unbroken. During this long period, 3'oung men have relieved 
him of much of the care and responsibility of an enormous business, 
but his name has been the bulwark around which they have rallied, and 



6l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the high standing and honor of the house which bears his name has 
been the object of their solicitude and devotion. 

Mr. January has been twice married. The first marriage took place 
in 1842, when he led to the altar Miss Mary Louisa Smith, step-daughter 
of the late Jesse S. Lindell, two of the three children of which marriage 
are still living. In 1859 he was again married, to Miss Julia Churchill, 
of Louisville, Kentucky, and he has now a family of five children by 
this last marriage. 

Mr. January was prominently instrumental in building the first Lindell 
Hotel, and subscribed largely for that purpose. In the movement for 
rebuilding that magnificent house he took the same active part, and his 
subscriptions are equally munificent. In addition to the pressing duties 
of his active business life, he has found time to consider and advocate 
many public enterprises. He was one of the originators of the Mer- 
chants' Bank ; was president of the Chamber of Commerce at the 
outbreak of the war ; served four years as president of the St. Louis 
Mutual Life Insurance Company ; and was one of the founders of the 
United States Insurance Company. Other prominent and flourishing 
financial corporations have had the benefit of his wise counsel in their 
board of directors. 

During the thirty-seven years which the firm, at the head of which is 
Mr. January, has existed, the name has been the same, and in the midst 
of the great financial crises, or the disrupting influences of civil war, it 
has stood as it stands to-day — respected and strong. 

Notwithstandino; his long and active career, Mr. Tanuarv is still in the 
possession of health and vigor ; and blessed with a robust constitution, 
he may, in the natural course of events, reasonably expect to live many 
years to come. 



ALBERT VAN SYCKLE. 



Ca)lBERT van SYCKLE is one of the prominent and repre- 
XjL sentativ^e business men of St. Louis whose identification with 
her energy and prosperity dates back before the convulsion 
which exercised so important an influence upon every one of her 
permanent interests. 

He was born in Milford, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, May 25, 
1830. His father was the most considerable merchant of the town, 
and both his father and his mother were of the Holland Dutch, or 
"Knickerbocker" stock. His education was such as the time afforded 
— schooling in a log-house, varied with services behind his father's 
counter. The family was a large one. While Albert was yet young 
his mother died, and the older boys scattered and engaged in various 
pursuits. 

When fourteen years of age he entered a small store as a clerk,. 
and before the expiration of a year, found himself conducting all the 
details of the business. Soon after this he opened business on his own 
account, with a partner ; but at the expiration of the year he became 
dissatisfied, and sold out his half of the goods at auction. 

In the winter of 1849 he went to New York, and made arrange-- 
ments to connect himself with his brother there the following spring. 
This plan, however, was never consummated, for, when the time 
arrived he came to St. Louis instead, and from here went to the little 
town of Naples to settle up a business there, in the interest of parties 
in the East. This occupied him about a year. In 185 1 he returned 
to St. Louis, and opened business. This move was prompted b}' the 
representations of our city papers, which led him to investigate the 
advantages which St. Louis offered. His own observation convinced 
him, and he then opened and conducted a prosperous business until 
1854, when he went to New York and joined his brother. The fol- 
lowing year the Crimean war broke out, and the business of the New 
York house in breadstuff's became immense. The affairs of the 
brothers were highl}^ prosperous and the future glowing, when the 



620 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 

great revulsion of 1857 swept over the Country. Mr. Van Syckle's 
losses during that calamitous period were ver}^ heav}^, but he was 
enabled to meet them and to continue the business up to 1859, when, 
at the suggestion of friends, he concluded to go to New Orleans, and 
commence business there. 

After the passage of the ordinance of secession, he felt that although 
his sympathies were with the people among whom he had made his 
home, it was the part of prudence to avoid, if possible, the commercial 
revolution which he thought he saw impending. With this view, he 
returned to the scene of his early successes — St. Louis — and has ever 
since been identified in thought, interest and ambition with her com- 
mercial growth. The operations of the house in provisions have been 
very extensive from the time of its opening, and no small share of its 
commanding influence may be traced to the genial, generous nature of 
its head, combined, as it is, with the sterling, ^^et possibly less 
attractive, qualities which belong to the model business man. 

Mr. Van Syckle was married, in 1856, to Miss Maria Fisher, 
daughter of C. B. Fisher, of Jersey ville, Illinois. 

During the period of his thorough identification with St. Louis, 
Mr. Van Syckle has experimented as a promoter and director of several 
insurance companies, and other public institutions ; but he was always 
jealous of the time which they occupied, and was never entirely satisfied 
with such investments. This feeling has, of late, led him to adopt the 
policy of bestowing no attention whatever upon affairs not immediately 
connected with his own business. In aid of deserving public or private 
objects, his contributions have been marked by a generosity that in men 
of less ability might almost be construed into a fault. Commercial 
success depends upon qualities which cannot be accurately determined 
from the success itself. Commerce being a purely experimental 
science, must be experimentally learned by each of its followers ; yet 
each learns the lesson in a difierent way. Mr. Van Syckle has always 
chosen his ground with ability, and then shown a stubborn obstinacy in 
making it good. He came to St. Louis in the midst of a ferment from 
which a definite commercial policy was to be evolved, and helped to 
define the plans that have been so beneficial to the growth and pros- 
perity of our cit}-. 

It is not so long — in the history of nations but a short space — since 
Van Trump swept the British Channel with a broom at his mast-head 
in token of undisputed supremacy, and the little republic of Holland 
ruled the commerce of the world. Then, again, England began to 



ALBERT VAN SYCKLE. 62I 

dispute who should "rule the wave," and while the contest was 
undecided, a new field was opened in the new world when Hendrick 
Hudson placed his finger upon that part of the map where was to grow up 
a new commercial centre. The island of Manhattan and its adjacent 
country drew to it the fresh enterprise of a nation of merchants. From 
thence it has radiated all over our country, and has. given us some of our 
clearest, most capable men of business. In the distribution, St. Louis 
has not been slighted, as she has drawn to herself a very considerable 
share of this transmitted commercial spirit. Among its representatives 
Mr. Van Syckle occupies a prominent position, of which he is justly 
proud. He is now in the meridian of life, and it requires no prophet 
to foretell that, in the days to come, the city of St. Louis will be 
greatly profited by his labors. 



EMIL PREETORIUS. 



vjc^ROBABLY no one of our prominent citizens of foreign birth has 
J- wielded a more powerful local influence, for the past ten or fifteen 
years, than Hon, Emil Preetorius, editor-in-chief of the West- 
liche Post. This influence does not depentd solely upon his position as 
manager of a widely-circulated journal, but, in a large degree, upon 
himself. Before he had any connection with journalism, Mr. Preeto- 
rius was known as a man of positive political views, and he had made 
some reputation among his countrymen, as an advanced thinker and 
forcible speaker. His history is an interesting one, and in many 
respects romantic. 

Mr. Preetorius was born on the 15th of March 1827, in the town 
of Alzey, Rheinplatz, or Rhenish Hesse. The first years of his 
youth were spent in the gymnasiums, or preparatory schools of Mainz 
and Darmstadt, where he received an excellent physical training and 
acquired the elements of a healthy constitution. He was naturally deli- 
cate in health, and had it not been for careful ph3^sical exercise, gradu- 
ally carried to even a vigorous treatment, in the gymnasium, he would 
have been an invalid for life. The mental forces of the young student 
developed quite as rapidly as could be desired, and in due time he was 
admitted to the University of Giessen, the capital of the Province of 
Upper Hesse. This university, founded in 1607, was one of the best 
schools in Germany, with a faculty of forty-five teachers, a library of 
36,000 volumes, an observatory, botanical garden, museum, etc. Its 
school of organic chemistry, under Liebig, has been long distinguished 
as one of the most thorough in the world. It was here, among three or 
four hundred students, that Preetorius pushed his way in the sciences, 
philosophies, and classics for several years. We afterward find him at 
the celebrated University of Heidelberg, enjoying the advantages which 
such an institution alone can supply. 

Mr. Preetorius graduated Doctor-at-Law in 1848. Shortly afterward 
he joined the Revolutionists, who made so bold an attempt from 1848 to 



624 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

1850 to establish a representative government. How this effort termi- 
nated is well known. Like thousands of other young men who went 
into this movement with enthusiastic patriotism, Preetorius was obliged 
to leave the country or suffer the consequences of his well-meant but 
unsuccessful acts. Previous, however, to his leaving his native land, 
he engaged in the practice of law, in which he met with considerable 
success. 

Mr. Preetorius came to St. Louis early in 1854, and engaged in mer- 
cantile pursuits for a while. The civil war coming on, engaged his 
earnest attention, and he devoted much time, and such means as were 
at his command, in organizing regiments of Germans, and sending 
supplies to them after they had gone into the held. 

In the autumn of 1862, Mr. Preetorius was elected to the State 
Legislature, on the Radical Emancipation ticket, by a handsome 
majority. He at once took a prominent place in the party, and gave 
evidence of possessing fixed principles and original opinions. During 
the Senatorial contest, he was a strong supporter of B. Gratz Brown 
and Mr. Loan for the vacancies in the United States Senate, and would 
listen to no compromise from the Conservatives. When the leading Dem- 
ocrats and Conservatives attempted to show that the Immediate Emanci- 
pationists were revolutionists, and that radicalism was an odious thing, 
Preetorius, who had spoken but little during the session, startled his 
fellow-members by a short and eloquent speech, in which he announced 
himself as a Radical of Radicals — in favor not only of the immediate 
abolition of slavery, but of liberty, equality and fraternity for the 
human race. After that, his position was well understood, and though 
few could indorse his political and social views endrely, all respected 
him for his frankness and conscientiousness. 

At the close of his legislative term in 1864, Mr. Preetorius resumed 
his business pursuits, yet found time occasionally to address political 
meetings, and was ever ready to assist in party matters. It was during 
the latter part of 1864 that he purchased an interest in the Wcstliche 
Post, a daily and weekly paper, at that time having a limited circulation, 
and shortly afterward assumed control of it. 

In 1867 he associated with him Hon. Carl Schurz, but for most of the 
time up to the present, he has had chief control of its editorial columns. 
The paper has increased in influence from year to year, and has yielded 
a handsome revenue to its proprietors. 

Mr. Preetorius saw fit to support liberal measures a few years ago, 
and for a time separated from the Republican party as represented hj 



P:MIL PREETORIUS. 625 

the administration of President Grant. He still adhered to those great 
principles which animated the Republican party during the war, and at 
present claims to be a Republican, though reserving to himself the right 
to criticise men and measures as he thinks they deserve. He is too 
honest to support corrupt men of any party, and too independent to 
bind himself to political actions that will compromise his self-respect. 

As a public speaker, Mr. Preetorius is forcible, logical and convinc- 
ing. He seldom makes lengthy speeches in the English language, but 
confines his efforts chiefly to the mother tongue. His lectures on 
aisthetical, philosophical and historical themes have attracted much 
attention, not only among Germans, but among the English-speaking 
people of the West. At his elegant home near Lafayette Park, Dr. 
Preetorius devotes much of his leisure to reading and study ; frequently 
responding, however, to the claims of society, in which he is ever 
popular. 



ALEXANDER J. P. GARESCHE, 



/TV HE name of Alexander J. P. Garesche is well known in the 
_L_ Mississippi Valley as one of the leaders of the St. Louis Bar. 
His paternal and maternal ancestors were French refugees from 
San Domingo, who were driven from that country during the historical 
revolution which convulsed the Island in 1791 ; and, with others 
whose descendants are now scattered over America, sought shelter 
in the United States. The family settled near Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, and was among the most respected of the State. 

Alexander, of whom this sketch treats, was born March i, 1823, 
near Matanzas, Cuba, while his parents were temporarily sojourn- 
ing on the Island. He received the rudiments of his education at 
the Quaker school of Samuel Smith, in Wilmington, Delaware, and, 
when prepared, entered the Jesuit College at Georgetown, District 
of Columbia, where he remained until the fall of 1838. In 1839 ^^^ 
family came to St. Louis. Ill health preventing prosecution of his 
studies, he for one year occupied the position of clerk in a store. 
Merchandising, however, not proving congenial to his taste or aspi- 
ration, in 1840 he entered the St. Louis University, taking the degree 
of B.A. in 1842, and that of M.A. in 1848. In this connection it 
may be stated, that, in the year 1865, in consideration of the valuable 
services he rendered his fellow-citizens in the well-known case of the 
"Test Oath," which our citizens of Missouri will remember, and as a 
slight recognition of the brilliant talents displayed in conducting the 
case, his Alma Mater conferred upon him the distinguished degree of 
LL.D.,— the only one of her sons who has at her hands received the 
three degrees in the gift of the University. 

In 1842, he entered the law office of Colonel Thomas T. Gantt, and 
began the study of that profession upon whose ranks he has since 
reflected so much honor and credit. He also followed for one session 
the law department of the St. Louis University, under the professorship 
of the late Judge Buckner, of Kentucky. In 1845, he was admitted 
to practice by Judge John M. Krum, and with one slight intermission. 



628 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

occasioned by his unwillingness to take the "test oath," which he looked 
upon as unconstitutional, and which he fought to the bitter end, has 
continued to follow his profession in St. Louis ever since. 

Being admitted to all the privileges of the bar, the marked abilities of 
the young lawyer soon began to attract the attention of his fellow- 
citizens, and in a short space of time he found himself in the pos- 
session of a large and lucrative practice, and, in the exercise of his 
professional duties, pitted in many cases against the oldest and most 
experienced of his brethren of the bar. His fervid eloquence was the 
theme of every-day conversation, and the energy and ability he dis- 
played in the cause of a client made his services much sought after by 
such as had cases in the different courts. 

In i8^6-\y, unsought by him, he was elected city attorney, the only 
office, we are informed, he ever filled, although it is well known that at 
various periods in his professional career, the most lucrative and honor- 
able positions in the gift of the people of his adopted State have been 
at his disposal. 

This utter aversion to holding public office on the part of Mr. 
Garesche, is accounted for on various grounds by his intimate friends, 
and by those who know him best ; but the most plausible is, that he 
preferred to give his time and attention to sounding the depths and 
unraveling the mysteries of a profession to which he is devotedly 
attached, rather than spending his years in grasping after the transitory 
honors of public place or preferment. 

Probably no period of his life is more marked than that intervening 
between 1865 and 1867, during which he was debarred from practice, 
and which witnessed his brilliant and manly fight against the adoption 
of the Drake Constitution, his resistance to the proscription of the 
ousting ordinance, and his stubborn, unyielding effort to break down 
the test oath. Although, in the incipiency of the fight for constitutional 
rights, he was associated with many gentlemen who were then, and are 
still, prominent ornaments of the St. Louis Bar, yet it must be 
acknowledged that to him alone belongs the laurels. One by one they 
became disheartened and discouraged at the dark prospects of succeed- 
ing in their endeavors to have this oath declared unconstitutional, and 
shielded themselves from disaster in the event of defeat, by taking the 
oath. The judges on the bench, the officers of the different courts, and 
the very jurymen who sat in the jury-box, were all men who had suc- 
cumbed to the necessities of the times, and fulfilled the requirements of 
this particular. He alone still held to his first convictions, and, not- 



A. J. P. GARESCHE. 629 

withstanding the innumerable difficulties — many of them unforeseen — 
which beset his pathway at every step, he never lost confidence in the 
justice of his cause, but with his gaze ever set on one issue, he labored 
on until, in 1869, by a decree of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, the "oath" was declared unconstitutional, and he was restored 
to all the rights and privileges of an American citizen ; and once more, 
in all the commendable pride of a hard-earned victory, he took his place 
at the St. Louis Bar. Justice had been vindicated, and he was satisfied. 
To say that he was made the recipient of praises from all portions of the 
State, but feebly expresses the estimation in which the people of 
Missouri held him. The old citizens who groaned beneath the same 
fell ban of disfranchisement, and who to-day possess all their former 
political rights, still speak with the deepest gratitude of the manly 
struggle Mr. Garesche made in their defense, and many still affirm 
that Missouri should raise a monument more durable than brass to 
commemorate the event. It was for this his Alma Mater saw fit to 
honor him and invest him with the degree of LL.D. 

In 1849 ^^- Garesche went with Frank Blair in the Free-soil move- 
ment, but notwithstanding his anti-slavery proclivities and sentiments, 
at the close of that memorable agitation he peremptorily refused to 
affiliate with the Republican party, believing that the political agitation 
of slaver}^ was to be deprecated. Retaining his views of the impolic}' 
of slavery, but guided by the constitutional provisions for its protection, 
he never faltered in his devotion and fealty to Democracy. And let it 
not be supposed that, although averse to a fault to seeking public pre- 
ferment or office at the hands of his fellow-citizens, he has failed to 
take an interest in the great questions of public policy which ever com- 
mand the attention of the nation. No man has a clearer perception 
of the political position of the country, and but few men give more 
time to mastering the political questions of the day. In every cam- 
paign, whether National, State or municipal, his voice was heard over 
the land, and his pen busy with articles for the press, doing battle for 
his party' and in the cause of Democracy. 

The prominent part he took in the celebrated cause of Charlotte 
vs. Gabriel S. Chouteau is of too recent date, and is too well known 
to the people of Missouri, to need recapitulation in this place. In it, 
for the last twelve years of its existence, he was the moving spirit. 
The herculean labors to be performed in a case which had dragged 
its weary length through all the different courts of the State for a 
decade, might well daunt any spirit but his own. But into this, as 



630 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

into everything he undertakes, he threw his whole soul, thrice armed 
with the unswerving conviction of the justice of his cause, and, after 
vears of toil and search had amid the musty archives of the old 
French courts of Lower Canada, and just one hundred years after 
the birth of the mother in Montreal, he had the satisfaction of seeing 
her descendants, to the second and third generation, declared free 
by a decree of the highest court in the State. Many such experi- 
ences might be quoted to exemplify the professional career of this 
gentleman at the St. Louis Bar, but these will suffice. 

Mr. Garesche was married in 1849 ^^ Laura, eldest daughter of 
Thomas C. Van Zandt, and grand-daughter of the celebrated Wynant 
Van Zandt, descendants of the old Knickerbocker stock of New York, 
a lady in every respect worthy of the man she accepted as a husband, 
and who is all that a wife and mother should be. Of this union, nine 
children — seven sons and two daughters — have been born, eight of 
whom are living. 

Blessed with a remarkably fine constitution, Mr. Garesche bears his 
years with admirable freshness, and few who gaze upon his well 
preserved physique, and see his elastic step, would suppose that more 
than half a century has passed over his head. He has ever been a deep 
student : not alone in the different branches of his profession, but in 
every department of ancient and modern literature. In oratory he 
possesses a pleasing address ; in eloquence, is fluent ; and in logic, con- 
vincing. His reputation at the bar, made years ago, places him in its 
front ranks. He is popular with all classes of citizens, who admire him 
as much in private life for his many amiable and social qualifications, 
as in public for his sterling integrity and noble manhood. 



EMILE THOMAS. 



^ NDER a republican form of government, the character of a com- 
LJ munity may be judged by that of the men whom they choose to 
fill the public offices, even as the characters of the nations of 
ancient Greece were judged by that of the men whom the people 
chose to crown on the occasions of their festivals or Olympian games. 
Men who have made honorable records in life, who have received the 
public indorsement of their fellows by a popular vote, are deserving of 
public mention in the historical annals of the community in which they 
live. Of this class is Emile Thomas, at present Sheriff of St. Louis 
county. 

Mr. Thomas was born in the province of Alsace, then of France, in 
March 1840. His father and mother were both of French origin, and 
were natives of the same portion of the French dominions. His father 
had quite an extensive nursery, and was a man in moderate circum- 
stances. For two years young Emile received the benefits of such 
instruction as the provincial schools of Alsace afforded, when in 1849 
his father emigrated with his family to America, and came to Caronde- 
let, then known as Vide Poche, by the way of New Orleans. 

Here the family remained about five months, when the elder Thomas 
bought a farm about four miles south of the River des Peres, now 
known as Carondelet Commons, where he remained until 1856. During 
these years young Emile assisted the labor of tilling and working the 
farm, and passing his nights in the perusal of such books as were at 
his command, and thus improving his mind. He was always fond of 
reading, and rarely came to town without taking back some volume, 
which he devoured with avidity. In this manner he educated himself. 

In 1859 ^^"^^ family returned to Carondelet, where Emile Thomas first 
began to take an interest in municipal affairs, acting as deputy constable, 
under Bart M. Gion, and in this capacity was quite prominent in the 
municipal election of i860, acting with the Republican party, with 
which he has always been identified. 



632 * BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1861, upon the breaking out of the civil war, Mr. Thomas 
responded to the call of President Lincoln for three months' men, and 
joined the Fifth Missouri Infantry volunteers, serving the designated 
time, and returning to civil life. While in this service he was present 
at the battle of Wilson's Creek, and was at Carthage under Sigel. In 
the fall of the same year he was elected constable of Carondelet 
township ; and in April 1862 was elected marshal of the city of Caron- 
delet. He also acted as enrolling and mustering officer in that district 
until 1864. 

He then determined upon re-entering the army, and taking part in 
the battles of his adopted country. Placing the marshal's office in the 
hands of a tried and trustworthy deputy, he joined the Fortieth Missouri 
Infantry, and was commissioned a Lieutenant. By special order, he 
was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, and after 
mustering this force out, reported to his own regiment, at Paducah, 
Kentucky. The regiment was ordered to Thomas' command at Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, and assigned to duty in the Fifth Army Corps, under 
General Stanley, participating in the battles of Duck River and Nash- 
ville. It was then transferred to the Sixteenth Army Corps, General 
A. J. Smith ; had a skirmish at Corinth, Mississippi ; was present at the 
storming of Spanish Fort, which preceded the fall of Mobile ; marched 
through Alabama to Montgomery, where, in 1865, it was mustered out, 
and Mr. Thomas received an honorable discharge from the military 
service of the United States. 

The prestige he received b}^ his prompt response to the call of his 
country for men to protect its flag, his connection, as Lieutenant- 
Colonel, with the Enrolled Missouri MiHtia, his connection with the 
army, and the honorable record he brought from its ranks, soon made 
him a man of no little importance with his fellow-citizens upon his 
return to civil life. 

In the spring of 1866, he was re-elected marshal of Carondelet, and 
in 1867 was appointed b}^ the County Court jailor of St. Louis county, 
which position he filled for four years. In 1870 he was elected county 
marshal on the Repubhcan ticket, and was re-elected in 1872. In 
1874 his party put him forward for sheriff' of St. Louis county, to which 
office he was elected by a handsome majority, running ahead of his 
ticket several thousand votes. This office, by far the most important 
in the gift of the people of the county, Mr. Thomas now holds ; and it 
is but justice to his integrit}- to state that it is filled to the entire satis- 
faction of all political creeds. 



EMILE THOMAS. 633 

During the war, in 1863, Mr. Thomas was married to Miss Maggie 
Brennan, of Carondelet. His family consists of three daughters and 
one boy. 

Since his advent to pubHc hfe, Mr. Thomas has taken a prominent 
interest in all matters relating to the public welfare, especially the 
public school system, of which he is an enthusiastic advocate, and 
great admirer. He has also been connected in various capacities with 
several financial corporations in St. Louis and Carondelet. Notwith- 
standing his political leanings, Mr. Thomas possesses the respect and 
marked confidence of his fellow-citizens, equally with any other man in 
the count}^ as his election to the most important oflice at their com- 
mand is ample evidence. He is possessed of fine executive abilit}", 
such as is necessary to proper administration of the Sherifi^'s office of 
such a wealthy and populous county as St. Louis. 

In private life, his genial nature and social qualities make him much 
esteemed and admired, and have surrounded him by friends of all 
political and religious creeds, who honor him for his manliness and 
goodness of heart. He is just entering upon the meridian and most 
important portion of his life, with his past record of usefulness to urge 
him to a still brighter future. 



SUNDERLAND G. SEARS. 



OF the many branches of trade and commerce which go to make up 
the greatness of St. Louis, in a commercial point of view, none 
are worthy of more consideration than the grain trade, and it is 
eminently just that those men who have brought their energies to bear 
upon this branch of industry should become peculiarly honored. Of 
this class is Sunderland G. Sears, who, for over thirty years, has 
occupied a prominent position in the grain market, and whose name is 
inseparably connected with one of the most extensive and successful 
enterprises of the day — the St. Louis Grain Elevator. 

Mr. Sears was born September 27, 1817, in Saratoga county, New 
York. His ancestors landed at Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower, 
and were among the first to plant the banner of civilization on the 
shores of New England. 

His early education was such as the common schools and academies 
of the State of New York at that period afforded. After completing 
his education, with a desire to begin life in the great centre of trade, 
he immediately proceeded to New York City, and entered as clerk in 
a mercantile house, where he married, and in the year 1838 turned 
his face toward the boundless prairies of the West, and came to St. 
Louis. Although firmly convinced of the future commercial greatness 
of St. Louis, he did not for ten years make it his permanent abiding 
place, but traveled up through Illinois and some of the Northern 
States, engaged in different pursuits. In 1848, however, he perma- 
nently located here, and entered into the miUing business with Henry 
Whitmore, in the old Monantum Mills, opposite the French Market, 
on Mill Creek, in which business he continued until 1869, under the 
firm-name of S. G. Sears & Co., and Alex. H. Smith & Co. During 
these years Mr. Sears built the Laclede Mills, second to none in the 
Union, and remodeled and rebuilt the Atlantic and Empire Mills. 

In 1863 a charter was granted to several enterprising gentlemen of 
St. Louis to build the St. Louis Elevator. The first board of directors 
comprised A. W. Fagan, John Howe, Theo. Laveille, S. W. McMas- 
ters, C. L. Tucker, E. O. Stanard, J. H. Alexander, Nathan Cole and 



6^6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Sunderland G. Sears. It might be well to state, however, that the 
enterprise originated in the minds of T. W. McMaster, of Rock 
Island, and Dr. Wm. Van Zandt, of St. Louis. 

For several years it was a struggle with the new company to maintain 
itself and pay current expenses, having no source of supply but the 
river, connections with the various railroads, except the North Missouri, 
not having been made at that time. 

In the fall of 1869 Mr. Sears was elected president, and a new era 
opened up to the struggling company. Time has fully demonstrated 
the wisdom of this choice, and that the right man was at last placed at 
the head of its affairs. Being an untiring worker, and possessing a 
kindly disposition, he quickly made friends for the company out of 
material which had been heretofore antagonistic to its interests ; and, 
as a consequence, under his able management business was greatly 
increased each year, until, at the present day, it stands one of the most 
gigantic and successful enterprises of the West. 

During his residence in St. Louis, which extends over some of the 
most eventful periods of the city's history, Mr. Sears has conducted 
some of the most important business enterprises ever undertaken since 
St. Louis was a village, and invariably carried the same to a successful 
termination. No man in the community has been more intimate!}^ 
connected with the grain and flour interests of the city than Mr. Sears, 
and no one man has contributed more toward making St. Louis the 
important grain market it is than he has — a distinction he may justly 
feel proud of. He has never been politically ambitious, but has 
devoted his wonderful energies entirely to business pursuits, where he 
has gained a reputation in the minds of his fellow-citizens far preferable 
to that gained in the muddy pool of politics. He has the satisfaction of 
knowing that St. Louis is to-day one of the great grain centres of 
America, and promises, in the future, to become the great reservoir for 
the cereal products of the boundless West, as well as the Valley of the 
Mississippi. 

The dwellings, warehouses, mills, etc., Mr. Sears has built, the 
grand and important enterprises with which his name is intimately 
connected, will remain as lasting monuments of his public-spiritedness 
long after the ephemeral glory of pigmy politicians shall have vanished. 
Better than all, he has made a name for himself of untiring energy, 
honorable dealing, and all the high attributes which are the legitimate 
reward of the successful man of business. 



GEORGE BAIN 



MONG the representative business men of St. Louis who, in 
an incredible short space of time, and by their own indomitable 
energy and business tact, have risen from a comparatively humble 
position, to be recognized as one of the proud leaders of our mercantile 
world, is the Hon. George Bain, the subject of this short memoir. 
One of our youngest, but yet most influential merchants, he has shown 
an ability and boldness in executing business schemes of gigantic mag- 
nitude, which command the wonder and respect of the community at 
large. 

George Bain was born May 5, 1836, in Sterling Castle, Scotland, 
where his father, who was an extensive tanner, also held an important 
and lucrative position under the British Government, in connection with 
the castle. His education was conducted at the grammar school of 
Sterling, and comprised, in addition to the usual branches of an English 
education, a full course of classics and the higher branches of Mathe- 
matics. In 185 1 his father emigrated with his family to Canada ; young 
George remained in Montreal, his father proceeding to the Upper 
Province, and entering business at Picton, on the Bay of Quinte. In 
Montreal, he remained for three years in the employ of Mr. James 
Court, laml agent and accountant. He next passed one year in Port- 
land, Maine, in the commission house of Mackintosh & Co., when he 
removed to Chicago, where he obtained a situation in a large commission 
house, of which business he had obtained a previous knowledge. But it 
would appear that the protection of an employer was in no way conge- 
nial to the tastes of a young and aspiring man such as Mr. Bain was, and 
in 1856 he formed a partnership with a Mr. Clarke in the commission 
business, under the style of Bain & Clarke, which mercantile venture, 
however, was brought to an untimely end by the financial difficulties of 
1857, which brought many an older and more firmly established house 
to the ground. 

In 1865, Mr. Bain came to St. Louis with Mr. Updike, of the firm of 
Gilbert, Updike & Field, in the capacity of salesman. In November 



638 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of the same year, in connection with Mr. Kehlor and Mr, Updike, he 
opened a house in New Orleans, and transacted one of the largest flour 
and grain business eyer done in the Crescent City. This branch of the 
house was known as Kehlor, Updike & Co. In January 1866, Mr. Bain 
was admitted as a partner in the St. Louis branch of the business, and 
the name was changed to Updike, Field & Co. On the ist of January 
1867, the connection with the Chicago house was severed, and the firm 
became Updike, Bain & Co. In December of the same year he sold 
out his interest in the New Orleans house, concentrating his whole 
interest in St. Louis, buying out his partners, and changing the firm 
name to George Bain & Co., which has been the firm name ever since. 

In January 1869, he admitted his brother, William B. Bain, to a 
partnership in the business, and in 187 1 purchased one-half interest 
in the Atlantic mill, corner of Main and Plum streets, an institution 
which turns out eight hundred barrels of flour daily, and is noted in 
every flour market of America and Europe for the superiority of its 
brands. 

In all public enterprises, and in all matters relating to State and 
municipal government, Mr. Bain has always taken a part at once noted 
for its prominence and its production of much good to his fellow- 
citizens. He was one of the executive committee of the Grain Asso- 
ciation, and is a director in the Second National Bank, Citizens' Insur- 
ance Company, Chamber of Commerce Association, and many other 
important organizations intimately connected with the welfare of St. 
Louis in its mercantile relations. He was vice-president of the National 
Board of Trade, and also of the Union Merchants' Exchange in 1871. 
He was a member of the Board of Aldermen, from the Fourth ward, 
from 1869 to 1873, and was looked upon as one of the most energetic 
members of that honorable body. In 1872 he received the nomination 
for Mayor from the Republican party, and failed by a very slight vote 
to secure the election. 

In 1874, he was first vice-president of the Millers' National Associa- 
tion, and president of the Missouri State Association. Upon the death 
of George P. Plant, he was cx-officio president of the National Associa- 
tion, to which office he was duly elected in 1875. I" 1^74 ^^ was also 
president of the Union Steam Mill Company, which turned out four 
hundred barrels of flour per day. 

In 1874, h^ shipped and personally accompanied 30,000 barrels of 
flour of his own manufacture, to the European markets, the first direct 
shipment of flour from St. Louis to Europe, that is to be recorded in 



GEORGE BAIN. 639 

our commercial history ; but the shipment being of such a superior 
quahty to that manufactured by European mills, the venture was not 
financially successful. This does not in any way detract from the merit 
of the enterprise, or the honor due to its projector. 

In 1857, Mr. Bain was married to Miss Clara Mather, at Yorkville, 
Illinois, of which marriage five children are the issue. 

His marked usefulness in this community — the vigorous support he 
gives to all measures having for their ultimate object the public good, 
his indomitable energy and acknowledged business integrity — have met 
with something like a recognition at the hands of his fellow-citizens. 
But at his age, and taking his past as a standard, much may be looked 
for in his future. The capacity which he possesses in such an emi- 
nent degree for such a large amount of earnest work, his shrewdness, 
which penetrates to the bottom the surroundings of complicated 
commercial and public questions, argue that the city of his adoption 
may naturally look for far higher and more gigantic undertakings, 
which,''as in the past, will redound to the public good. 

In private, not less than public life, Mr, Bain is very popular, and 
counts his friends by the legion. His home, one of the most costly in 
St. Louis, is surrounded by every comfort that a refined taste could 
suggest or wealth could purchase. His social qualities attract to his 
fireside scores of personal friends and admirers, upon whom he lavishes 
the most princely hospitality. Young, vigorous and enterprising, Mr. 
Bain is one of the most remarkable examples of well-merited success 
to be found in the ranks of the commercial men of St. Louis. 



SULLIVAN BLOOD. 



/ I \HE sketch of no man now living in St. Louis will be read with a 
JL deeper interest, or will exert a more beneficial influence upon the 
ambitious youth, struggling without friends or money in the great 
battle of life, or will give more encouragement to the faltering footsteps 
of him who would gain an independence and competency in the com- 
mercial world, than that of Sullivan Blood, who, from the humblest 
of beginnings, has raised himself step by step ; who, through his own 
incorruptibility, integrity and indefatigable energy, has filled the most 
trusted positions in the gift of his fellows, and attained affluence and 
wealth. 

Sullivan Blood was born in the town of Windsor, State of Vermont, 
April 24, 1795. His parents were natives of Massachusetts, and emi- 
grated to Vermont, then a newly admitted State, in 1793. They lived 
upon a farm, and both died in 1813. The death of both parents, the 
one following the other so rapidly, was a severe blow to young Sullivan, 
but with a full determination to work out his own destiny manfully, and 
full of enterprise and ambition, two years after this sad dispensation he 
emigrated West. After thoroughly examining the different locations as 
placed upon the maps of the country, he selected St. Louis as the most 
eligible point to commence his fortune, and in 18 17 took up his resi- 
dence in this city, then a mere trading town of about 2,500 inhabitants. 
The now metropolitan city was at that period passing the barriers in 
municipal existence which divide the village from the town ; accord- 
ing to an edict issued by the authorities, a night-watch was appointed 
the following year. Among the number of candidates for the new 
appointment, Mr. Blood was elected as one of the watchmen ; but his 
manhood and executive abilities were not long in commanding appre- 
ciation, and ere long he was elevated to the position of captain. 

This, in the early days of our city, was one of the most important 
offices in the gift of the people ; and so faithfully did Captain Blood 
protect the citizens from the thief, the assassin and the incendiary, and 
so efficient was he in the discharge of his duties, that he was re-elected 
to the same position for several years. 



642 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1823, Captain Blood revisited the Green Mountain State, and 
during his visit married Miss Sophia Hall, who still survives at a 
venerable old age, surrounded by the respect and esteem of all who 
know her. On August 14, 1873, this aged couple celebrated their 
golden wedding, the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage day. The 
famil}^ consists of two daughters and one son : the latter, Henry Blood, 
residing at Hamburg, Iowa, where he is engaged in merchandising ; 
Arabella, wife of James L. Sloss, Esq., of St. Louis, and Miss Anna 
Louisa Blood, who never married. 

Captain Blood remained a constable of St. Louis for ten years, and 
acted in the capacity of deputy sherift' during the terms of Robert 
Simpson and John R. Walker. In 1833 he was elected and served as 
an alderman from the Second Ward for one term, and was one of the 
most efficient members of the City Council. Here Mr. Blood's 
political life ended. He considered that any further interference with 
politics would retard his private business, and although solicited, on 
various occasions since, to become a candidate for civic honors, he 
has steadily refused the proflered mark of regard. 

The advent of steamboating in St. Louis gave a new life and impetus 
to every branch of industry in the West. Long before railroads had 
crossed the prairies of Illinois, steamboating saw its palmy days on the 
Mississippi. It was during this period that Mr. Blood turned his 
attention to river matters, and became engaged in the St. Louis and 
New Orleans trade, and plentifully gathered of the harvest which 
belonged to those who were interested in this profitable pursuit. 

Captain Blood was well known to the traveling and commercial world 
for his uniform kindness and gentlemanly treatment of passengers, and 
his boats, which he himsef built and personally commanded, soon 
became favorites. Many old citizens of St. Louis, and in fact merchants 
from all parts of the Union, still remember the pleasant treatment of 
Captain Blood, and recall with feelings of pleasure many little reminis- 
cences while passengers on his boats. It is said that during his day as 
an officer on the river, he knew the Mississippi as perfectly as any pilot 
engaged upon it. 

In the early part of the year 1847, an act was passed for the incorpo- 
ration of the Boatmen's Savings Institution. The circumstance of 
Captain Blood being once a boatman, and his popularity with all who 
followed that profession, made it proper that he should be appointed a 
director of the organization, which was created with special reference 
to the wants, and for the benefit, of that numerous class of individuals 



SULLIVAN BLOOD. 643 

who follow the Western rivers as a means of subsistence ; and which 
has, by the proper use of its capital, given increased vitality to the 
business of the city. The gentlemen mentioned in the act as corpora- 
tors were, George W. Sparhauk, Edward Dobbins, Luther M. Kennett, 
Daniel D. Page, B. W. Alexander, Adam S. Miles, Amedee Valle, 
George K. Budd, Thomas Andrews, Henry D. Bacon, Laurason Biggs, 
Samuel C. Davis, James G. Barry, John M. Wimer and Sullivan Blood. 
It was happily surmised that the name of Captain Blood in connection 
with the new financial corporation would enlist the attention of numer- 
ous hard-working individuals, who, improvident to the last degree 
themselves, had the most unbounded confidence in his business capacity 
and integrity as a man, and who might, therefore, be induced to 
deposit a small portion of their hard-earned money, and thus lay up a 
fund upon which they might draw in case of becoming disabled through 
accident or otherwise. 

The executive abilities of Captain Blood soon gave him prominence 
among his fellows, and he was finally honored by being chosen presi- 
dent of the banking concern he had assisted in forming. This respon- 
sible and honorable position he filled until 1870, when, feeling old age 
creeping on him, and wishing to place the executive portion of the 
corporation in the hands of some younger and more active man, he 
resigned. He still holds his position as director of the bank, and 
although four score years have silvered his brow, he makes a dail}^ 
visit to the institution, and takes quite an active interest in its daily 
affairs. It is conceded by all, and especially by those with whom he 
has been intimately associated, that the weight of his character is par- 
ticularly manifested in the popularity of the institution. 

Mr. Blood has always been a hard worker, and still, in his ripe old 
age, is as active in business pursuits as many men a quarter of a century 
younger. He has not frittered away his time in visionary impossibilities 
or slothful inaction, but "honorable labor" has been the maxim of his 
life, and to it he is indebted for the honorable name and worldly com- 
forts he possesses in the decline of his life ; and to his high moral worth 
as one of the best of citizens, his benevolence and open-handed philan- 
thropy as a man, his unblemished character and recognized integrity, 
together with his indefatigable industry, the crowning glory of his life, 
he is indebted for this humble tribute of respect that is paid to his 
character b}^ the author. 



JOHN C. SWAN. 



vAJMONG the oldest and most respected citizens of St. Louis, and 
lL\. one who has passed a long and eventful career in working indus- 
triousl}^ to develop the river interests of the Mississippi Valley, is 
J. C. Swan, a short sketch of whose active life must prove of more 
than ordinary interest to the reader. 

He was born in Scott county, Kentucky, May i6, 1803. His father, 
John Swan, was one of the early pioneers of the State, having emi- 
grated from Maryland about the year 1795. He owned three farms in 
Kentuck}^ aggregating quite a large tract of land, forming quite an 
estate. He came to Missouri in 1814, and while locating lands in St. 
Francis county, was taken sick and died. 

Colonel Richard M. Johnson, who was subsequently Vice-President 
of the United States, was young J. C. Swan's guardian. In 1819, 
Colonel James Johnson became contractor for the transportation of 
Government troops, their equipments, stores, etc., to Council Blufts. 
Accompanying this expedition, on a pleasure excursion, were J. C. 
Swan, the subject of this sketch, Darwin P. Johnson and Sanford C. 
Faulkner, young men who desired to see this new country. The 
steamers Johnson, Jefferson and Expedition were the transports in this 
operation. The trip was highly pleasing, especially to the pleasure- 
seeking portion of those forming the party, — the wild and romantic 
scenery of the mighty Missouri, the high bluffs, the broad prairies, the 
impenetrable forests, each in their turn offering special attractions to 
the eye and entrancing the imagination of the young adventurers, all 
combined to charm young Swan, who was perfectly infatuated with the 
trip, so much so that he resolved to follow the river for a livelihood. 

In 1820, he returned to Kentuck}', and earnestly besought his guar- 
dian to permit him to follow the river as a business. His guardian, 
who was one of the kindest-hearted men living, seeing the enthusiasm 
of the young man, at last consented, and in 1821, young Swan made 
his debut as a river man as clerk of the steamer Calhoun, under Captain 
Silas Craig, who had commanded the expedition in 1819-20. During 



646 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the seasons of 1821 and 1822, the Calhoun pHed regularly between 
St. Louis and Louisville ; at times making a trip south to New Orleans, 
on which latter occasions young Swan generally had charge of the boat. 

In 1823-24, he was an officer on board the steamer Steubenville, with 
Captain Crawford ; in 1825, he was clerk on the Governor Brown, with 
Captain Alex. Scott, and continued in this position during the season of 
1826. In the spring of 1827, Captain Scott bought the steamer America, 
and at the Captain's earnest request Swan officiated as pilot, in which 
position he remained until the close of the season of 1830. During 
this winter, Mr. Swan went to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in company 
with James Wood, of that city, built the steamer Carrollton, and upon 
her completion took charge of her in the St. Louis and New Orleans 
trade. In 1833, he built the Missourian, which he commanded for a 
season; in 1834, ^^ built the Majestic; in 1835, he built the Selma, 
which he sold to Captain Sullivan Blood. In 1837, ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ steamer 
St. Louis. She was the largest steamer that had ever plied in those 
waters up to that period. In the summer of 1839, ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ 
Captain Joseph M. Convers, quitting the river for the time, and going 
into the wholesale grocery business with Robert A. Barnes, the firm 
being Barnes & Swan. In the summer of 1840, he determined to 
resume his old calling, and returned to the river. Going to Pittsburg, 
he built the steamer Missouri, bringing her out in the spring of 1841. 
In August of that year the Missouri, while lying at the wharf at St. 
Louis, was destroyed by fire, the work of an incendiar}^. 

Nothing daunted by his losses, he went to Louisville, and laid the 
keel of the Alexander Scott, bringing her out in the spring of 1842. 
In the summer of 1845, he sold the Scott, and purchased an interest in 
the J. M. White, and commanded her until 1847, when he effected a 
sale of her to Captain J. W. Goslee. He determined to build one 
more boat, but resolved that this should be the last, and, with others, 
he contracted for the steamer Alex. Scott. She was launched in 
March 1848, and left for New Orleans on her first trip. Mr. Swan 
remained as commander of her until July 1854, when he disposed of 
her, and retired from the river. 

In the fall of 1857, Mr. Swan purchased a beautiful suburban 
property at Webster Station, on the Pacific Railroad, where, far 
removed from the busy hum and bustle of city life, he passed nine 
years amid the delights of the country. This he partly disposed of in 
1868, and, accompanied by his wife, made a tour of Europe, visiting 
all the places of note in the old world. 



JOHN C. SWAN. ' 647 

Mr. Swan was twice married ; the first time, in 1830, to Miss 
Anne Kennett, sister of Hon. L. M. Kennett, ex-Mayor of St. Louis, 
bv whom he had two children, both of whom are dead. His first wife 
died after three years of married life, greatly regretted by all who 
knew her. His second marriage took place in 1833, when he led to 
the altar another Miss Kennett, a cousin of his first wife, who still lives. 
Mr. Swan has no children living. 

For many years Mr. Swan has relinquished active business pursuits, 
living in retirement, and reaping the fruits of his earlier manhood in 
peace and plenty. His whole life has been devoted to his business, 
and his great aim was the development of the river and steamboat 
interests of St. Louis, toward which end he has done as much as any 
man of his age living. 



JOSEPH BROWN, 



JOSEPH BROWN is another of the representative men of St. 
Louis who first saw the light of existence beyond the ocean. He 
was born in Jedburg, Scotland. His father was a man of good 
position and attainments, who, before his emigrating to America, en- 
joyed the acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott, in whose neighborhood he 
resided, and was acquainted with the originals of many of the char- 
acters portrayed by the great novelist. When the subject of this 
sketch was but eight years old, his parents came to America, first 
settling in St. Louis, but subsequently removed to Alton, which became 
the family home, and where the father died. 

Young Joseph early evinced a predilection for active pursuits, and in 
order to satisfy a desire so manifested, he left college before graduating, 
at the age of eighteen years, for the purpose of entering on commercial 
life. 

He early accumulated property by judicious management and well- 
considered operations, and came to be regarded as a leading spirit in the 
execution of projects of unusual magnitude. The energy of his moral 
convictions is well illustrated in his persistent refusal to engage in the 
lucrative business of distilling, when importuned to do so by his friends. 
That it would be profitable, he was well assured, but he honestly 
doubted the propriety of manufacturing an article the abuse, if not the 
use, of which produces such calamitous results. This doubt decided 
him against it, and silenced all efforts for a reconsideration. 

He was elected Mayor of Alton, and filled that responsible position at 
the time when the river connection of the Chicago and Alton Railroad 
was being determined. Through his efforts the claims of commerce 
were finally admitted to be paramount to all others, and the railroad 
passed through instead of around the city. 

About this time Mr. Brown became engaged in the river business, 
and successfully commanded some of the most elegant and fastest 
steamers that in his day plied the Western waters, some of which were 
built under his own supervision. At the outbreak of the late war he 



650 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

had retired from the river, and had become a permanent citizen of St. 
Louis, devoting his attention to real estate ; but such a great social and 
political struggle could not find him an idle spectator. His attitude 
was that of a War Democrat, inflexibly opposed to a dissolution of the 
Union, or a perversion of the principles on which it was founded. 

Having early exhibited a remarkable talent for mechanical engineer- 
ing, and having had a valuable experience on the river, he now turned 
his attention to the construction of gunboats for the Government, carry- 
ing on his operations at Cincinnati, Mound City, New Albany, and 
wherever he could bring men and means to bear. 

Among the vessels constructed by him are, the Indianola, the first 
iron-clad that passed the batteries at Vicksburg, the Tuscumbia, and 
Chillicothe. He is also the builder of the two famous rams, x\venger 
and Vindicator, besides having altered and fitted out sixty-three patrol 
steamers, afterward known as the "tin-clads." 

In 1868, he was elected to the Missouri State Senate on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, and served with distinction during one session, but vacated 
his seat by changing his residence to a portion of the city outside the 
boundaries of the district he was chosen to represent. On the 28th 
day of March 1871, he was elected president of the Pacific Railroad 
Company. Six days later he was elected Mayor of St. Louis — the first 
Democrat that was chosen to fill the chair for many years. At the 
succeeding election, he received the indorsement of the people in a 
re-election to the same office, although powerful interests were arrayed 
against him. Upon the death of Mayor Barret, he was again offered 
the honor for the third time, but refused on the grounds of private 
business. His administration of the affairs of this large city for four 
years, received the approval of both political parties, and upon his 
retirement from public life, the entire press of the city was loud in 
praise of his executive ability. 

A thoroughly Western man in all his hopes and ambitions, represent- 
ative of the activity, culture and comprehensive spirit which have 
established an empire in the Mississippi Valley, he holds a strong place 
in popular favor. He holds broad views on all political and social 
affairs ; possesses a kindly sympathy with all mankind, especially the 
poor and suffering, and is slow to condemn even the most imperfect of 
his fellow-beings. 

Mr. Brown is truly a man of the people, and in dealing with the 
people, his career has been consistent, truthful and simple. In his 
business matters he is the soul of honor, and has a reputation for integ- 



JOSEPH BROWN. 651 

rity second to none in St. Louis. By his industry and prudence, he has 
amassed a large fortune, which he uses to the best advantage. His 
charity is wide-spread, and many of the pubHc institutions of a benevo- 
lent character have good cause to remember for many years to come h.s 
administration. His noble efforts to ameliorate the condition of the 
fallen classes, are still fresh in the minds of St. Louisians, ever 
believing that it was proper to legislate for and not against these 
unfortunate beings. The reformation of the outcast and the degraded 
was an all-absorbing desire of his, and for this end he fought with all 
his might and strength. The revolution he caused in the management 
of the House of Refuge alone, is sufficient to entitle him to the grati- 
tude of his fellow-citizens. On the whole. Mayor Brown's official 
record was a brilliant one, and compares favorably with that of any of 
his predecessors. 




^ttn ^ 





JOSIAH G, M'CLELLAN 



IN making a selection of men, sketches of whose Hfe should go 
to make up the biographical portion of this work, the author has 
used great care to select none but such men as have in some 
measure left "footprints on the sands of time," or who have, by their 
lives and labors, aided materially in making St. Louis the great com- 
mercial centre she is ; men whose works and deeds in matters of 
public interest, shall live in the memory long after they themselves 
have been gathered to their fathers. Of this class decidedly is Josiah 
G. McClellan. 

Mr. McClellan was born in October 1824, in Wheeling, West 
Virginia, and is consequently at present fifty years old — a fact many 
who are in the habit of meeting him in the course of every-day exist- 
ence would scarcely believe. His father, Samuel McClellan, was in 
the shoe and leather business. His mother died when he was but a 
few weeks old. Both his parents were emigrants from New England, 
and belonged to a long-lived race. His grandfather, on his father's 
side, lived to see his ninetieth year, and his grandmother died about 
two years ago, at the advanced age of one hundred and one. He was 
raised by a foster-mother, and received the rudiments of an education 
in a private school. Virginia, at this early date, was not blessed with 
our common school system ; nor was it for many years after, as will be 
seen further on in this memoir, that the old aristocrats of that good old 
State divested themselves of their prejudices against a system of educa- 
tion which throws the golden gates of knowledge open alike to the 
child of the poor man as well as that of the millionaire. The system 
of private tuition existed to a great extent, among the more wealthy 
classes, and when young Josiah was about twelve years old, his father, 
with several other gentlemen of that section who had sons and daughters 
to educate, sent to New England for a competent teacher, and started a 
private seminary. Here Josiah attended for some four or five years, 
where he laid the corner-stone of an education to come after. His 
father determined to give his son every available opportunity of pre- 
paring himself for the great battle of life. He sent him to Williams 



654 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1847 
with the highest honors, making the valedictory oration. He was then 
in his twenty-third year, and, as far as education was concerned, well 
prepared to enter upon any path of life. He determined to devote 
himself to the study of law, and accordingly entered the office of 
Morgan Nelson, who occupied an enviable position in the front ranks 
of his profession. 

As has been intimated above, the old and aristocratic Virginian 
of that da}^ had deep prejudices against any system of education that 
looked like educating the masses. He was exclusive in his ideas of 
education, as on almost all other subjects. But Mr. McClellan, who 
had been to one of the most famous institutions of learning in the 
North, and had received as liberal an education as the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts could give, returned to Virginia, imbued with quite 
different sentiments upon this important subject, and it was not long ere 
his views upon popular education were being scattered broadcast 
through the medium of the press, and were being read in every house- 
hold within the limits of the State where a public newspaper penetrated. 
The columns of the Wheeling Times, then edited by James Wharton, 
were thrown open to him. The war waxed fierce, as one by one the 
strongholds of these prejudices fell or were removed. The manufac- 
turing population, all of whom were in favor of Mr. McClellan in this 
fight, began to grow strong; coal had been found in the hills, and 
their numbers daily increased. These were all in favor of common 
schools for their children. The prejudices of the old aristocrats grad- 
ually gave way before the reasoning and superior enlightenment of the 
young law student, and before he had completed his law studies, 
Mr. McClellan had the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing the school 
houses crowded with children, all receiving the manifold benefits of an 
education, from all of which they had been heretofore debarred. This 
was certainly sufficient glory for a young man who had not as yet com- 
pleted his professional studies. 

After completing his law studies, he was admitted to the bar, but 
resolved not to practice in Wheeling. Like all ambitious young men, 
he longed for the boundless West. The great Valley of the Missis- 
sippi was just then unfolding to the world its thousands of opportuni- 
ties, and its manifold and untold wealth. The heart of the young 
lawyer was fired by the wonderful descriptions told of the land, and he 
accordingly determined to seek a home toward the setting sun. His 
father gave him the choice of the great cities of the West: St. Louis, 
Chicago or San Francisco. He chose the first. 



JOSIAH G. m'cLELLAN. 655 

In 1850 he started for St. Louis, by steamboat, with but fifty dolhirs 
in his possession, which his father gave him on the wharf at Wheeling, 
determined on cutting his way to fortune in the rising city of the 
Mississippi. Many men who have since become distinguished citizens, 
were his fellow-passengers, among whom was General Frost. Upon 
his arrival in St. Louis he made the acquaintance of Peter A. Ladue, 
who had just been elected Assessor of St. Louis County. He entered 
the Assessor's office as chief clerk, not so much for the remuneration 
the position afforded, as to become familiar with land and land-owners 
in St. Louis County. This was a quarter of a century ago, and St. 
Louis contained about 45,000 inhabitants, and there was not a railroad 
within a thousand miles of the city. To-day the population borders on 
half a million, and railroads strike out from her as a centre to all points 
of the compass. Mr. McClellan witnessed the opening ceremonies of 
the Pacific Railroad, at what is now the Fourteenth street depot. This 
was under Mayor Kennett, who broke ground upon the occasion, and 
turning to the multitude predicted that many were present who should 
live to see the pig-tailed Chinaman, and chests of tea, direct from the 
Celestial empire, delivered at their doors. It is needless to say how 
true were his predictions. He also witnessed the opening ceremonies of 
the Ohio & Mississippi road, which took place in East St. Louis. 

He remained in Mr. Ladue' s office about a year, making himself 
familiar with the land titles of St. Louis County, when he determined 
to enter upon the practice of his profession, and for that purpose occu- 
pied a portion of the office of Hon. John F. Darby, on Pine street 
between Second and Third streets. Mr. Darby had just been elected 
to represent this district in the United States Congress. He soon formed 
a business relation with the late General Hillyer, of General Grant's 
staff'. Judge Moody, late of the Circuit Court, was soon afterward 
admitted, and the firm was McClellan, Moody & Hillyer. This firm 
soon commanded a large and lucrative practice, and continued in 
existence until 1861. General, then plain Captain, Grant occupied desk 
room in this office, and it was here the friendship sprang up between 
Grant and Hillyer, which was never broken. Hillyer was afterward 
on Grant's Staff', and probably no man was as intimate at the White 
House with President Grant and his family, as was Colonel Hillyer. 

Upon the breaking out of the civil war, the firm was disrupted, 
Hillyer taking the field. Moody continuing the business, and Mr. 
McClellan going to join his family at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where, 
in 1856, he had married the daughter of the late F. C. Sharpe, one of 
the most renowned lawyers of Kentucky. 



656 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1863 he returned to St. Louis, but only to find every vestige of his 
fortune, the fruits of patient labor and toil, swept away, or swallowed up 
in the disastrous troubles of the times. He was completely bankrupt ; 
his property had been sold under deeds of trust during his absence, and 
he stood almost as poor a man as he was years before, when he landed 
upon the levee with but fifty dollars, an emigrant from Virginia. He 
had all the battles of life to fight over again, but nothing daunted, he 
went to work with a will and energy, resolved to overcome all difii- 
culties and come out victorious in the end. 

Mr, McClellan then turned his attention to land titles, and the idea of 
getting up a reliable index of titles to all the real estate in the city and 
county of St. Louis, one that would be made a standard authority in all 
questions touching the titles to lands, first came into his mind; and, 
with him, to conceive such an idea was to act upon it. Such a work 
was sadly needed in this section of the country, and it could not but 
prove of inestimable value to land owners and land purchasers in the 
future. 

To the reader who may not be familiar with the peculiar history of 
land titles in and about St. Louis, the herculean labor of such an 
undertaking may not appear at first sight ; but to such as have had 
deaHngs in real estate, the wonderful pluck and energy it required to 
enter upon such a work are quite palpable. An abstract of title to land 
in and about St. Louis is quite different from that of any other section 
of the country, owning to the fact that before the purchase of this 
country from France, the old French and Spanish law system pre- 
vailed — a system of concessions and grants to the subjects of the 
country, which, by virtue of the treaty of cession, the Government of 
the United States undertook to adjust and confirm, and survey for the 
purpose of segregating them from the other public domain. Several 
tribunals for this purpose were appointed. In most instances, the con- 
firmations were made to some old Frenchman's legal representatives. 
When the archives did not show any deed from the original grantee, in 
order to get at a reliable abstract of title, recourse had to be had to the 
cathedral and other parochial records for pedigrees. 

Another, and a very serious difficulty in abstracting titles in St. Louis, 
arose 'from the indefinable character of the ancient deeds. They were 
in the habit of bounding a lot on aff sides by Frenchmen, instead of 
doing it in the way of a regular description of the property by local 
and definite bounds. Another serious difficulty arose out of confficts 
between the old Spanish grants and confirmations on the one hand, and 



JOSIAH G. m'cLELLAN. 657 

what are called school surveys and New Madrid locations on the other. 
A word of explanation with regard to these : 

Both of what are called New Madrid locations and school surveys 
were gifts of the Government, and by the laws governing them they 
had to be located subject to the prior claims, under the treaty of cession, 
of the old French and Spanish grants, and owing to the negligence of 
persons holding old French and Spanish land grants in not having them 
officially confirmed and separated from the public domain, and school 
surveys and New Madrid locations being allowed to be placed on lands 
in and around St. Louis, appearing from official records to be vacant, 
conflicts were continually arising, and exist even to the present day, 
between them ; the records of our courts are full of this kind of liti- 
gation. 

Thus will be seen the difficulties and labors of getting up an Index, 
such as Mr. McClellan's will be, and is so far as it has been completed. 
Besides this labor, Mr. McClellan had on his hands the task of support- 
ing himself and family and defraying the expenses of so gigantic an 
undertaking, out of his daily labor as an investigator of titles. The 
fact of Mr. McClellan being a trusted, able and prominent lawyer in 
St. Louis, gave additional weight to his labors, and parties desiring an 
abstract of title to land invariably required his opinion as a professional 
man and a lawyer, which compelled him to give the land law of this 
country a thorough overhauling, involving the digestion of the numerous 
decisions of the courts in cases arising out of the peculiar land system 
of this county. 

Such an index as this, when completed, as it must be in a short time, 
will be one of the institutions of St. Louis, and will be of incalculable 
benefit to the land owner and land purchaser for all time to come. It is 
based on the principle of opening an account with every separate tract 
or parcel of land in the city and county, wherein every deed relative to 
each particular tract is indexed in its appropriate place. The magnitude 
of such an undertaking will be readily perceived, when it is taken into 
consideration that there are five hundred and twenty books of records of 
deeds in the Recorder's office, averaging five hundred pages to a book, 
and nearly two deeds to a page. The cost of such a work may easily 
be conceived. Mr. McClellan has been about five years at work on 
this undertaking, and hopes ere long to bring it to a successful com- 
pletion, and during this time has given it the greater portion of his 
attention. 

In polidcs, Mr. McClellan is a Democrat of the old school, but 
43 



658 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

entirely free from partisan prejudices. Before the war, in the conflict 
between the Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery parties, he was on the Demo- 
cratic legislative ticket with the present Senator Bogy and other 
prominent citizens, and took an active part in the canvass of the 
county, which was one of the fiercest ever waged in St. Louis county. 
But a large and constantly-increasing business has always claimed his 
attention, and although never inditf erent in any political contest, politics 
are always a secondary consideration with him. 

The completion of the great work of his life, his Index, is now, and 
for years has been his absorbing idea. To bring to a successful termin- 
ation a work that must live as long as the city exists, and in it to leave 
to his children a patrimony inestimable, is his highest ambition. 

His many qualities of head and heart have drawn around him, in 
private as well as in public life, a large and influential circle of friends 
and acquaintances, whose best wishes in his vast project he has always 
had, and all of whom feel proud of the friendship of such a public- 
spirited citizen and truly exemplary gentleman. 



JOHN FINN, 



IT is a fact well worthy of mention that many of the men who, by 
their energ}^ wealth and business capacity, have assisted materially 
in making St. Louis the great commercial centre of the West, are 
of Celtic origin. Among this honored class may be ranked John Finn, 
a man whom his fellow-citizens of all nationalities have been pleased 
to honor, and whose successful efforts to keep the great stock of the 
West centered in the city of his adoption, are alone worthy of public 
recognition, to say nothing of the many other ways in which he has 
identified himself with the interests of St. Louis. 

Mr. Finn is a native of Ireland, and was born in the county Galway, 
May 17, 1829. His father was a farmer, and was also extensively 
known as one of the heaviest stock dealers in the west of Ireland. 
Young John secured just such an education as the common schools of 
his native county could afford at that period ; comprising English gram- 
mar, arithmetic, reading and writing. 

After the death of his father, and when he was about seventeen 
years old, the family emigrated to America. John had received some 
insight into the stock business, from a connection with his father's 
trade in the old country, and consequently brought with him some 
knowledge of that branch of industry in which, in after life, he has 
proved such a success. 

During 1847 and 1848, he was in the wholesale commission business, 
at Washington Market in New York, in which he met with great suc- 
cess, realizing a most handsome return for his labors. He also entered 
the stock business up the Hudson River, and was known as the most 
extensive buyer that made the Catskill Mountains the scene of their 
operations. He became quite popular as a member of the old Jackson 
Guards, and raised the Finn Guards, a military organization still 
remembered for its numbers and respectability by old New Yorkers. 
Here, as elsewhere, he was eminently successful in all his business 
operations, all his speculations yielding liberal profits, so that he was 
regarded in the community as a fair specimen of that success which is 
the sure reward of enterprise, energy, and business pluck. 



66o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHED. 

In 1854, he emigrated West, coming to St. Louis, and immediately 
entered the stock trade at the Bellvue House. His efforts to secure to 
St. Louis the stock trade of the great West, and his fight with the New- 
York and Cincinnati combinations, over wliich he was finally victorious,, 
are subjects of our mercantile history, and are properly appreciated by 
the mercantile world of St. Louis, to whom the facts are familiar. 

His personal experiences upon the great desert of America, his ad- 
ventures upon the vast plains while in pursuit of his stock business, 
would fill a volume, and are of the most interesting character. He was. 
one of the first to introduce the Mexican stock to the St. Louis market. 
He made three separate trips across the plains in one year, each time 
bringing back large droves of stock, which netted him handsome 
profits. 

The war breaking out, and the large demand of the Government for 
stock, offered a new and extended field for his operations. During the 
four years of that memorable sti*uggle, he sold to the Government over 
300,000 head of horses and mules, and was the acknowledged stock- 
dealer of the Mississippi Valley. No man did more to center this vast 
trade in St. Louis, for which New York, Cincinnati and other points 
made such hard struggles, than John Finn. 

He was commissioned by Governor Gamble to raise a regiment, but 
for business reasons did not see fit to accept. During the last days of 
the great rebellion he bought out the extensive auction mart of Morgan 
Brothers, on the corner of Fifth and Carr streets, where he carried on 
the largest auction business of the West. He secured the sale of all 
the Government stock, buildings, etc., at the declaration of peace. 

Mr. Finn always took a great interest in the municipal affairs of the 
city. In 1865 he was elected alderman from the Fifth ward, and served 
one term in the City Council. In 1866, when the city was desolated by 
the most fearful scourge that ever swept over the land, the cholera, 
Mr. Finn was appointed president of the Board of Health, certainly at 
that time the most trying position in the city government. The people 
died by the hundreds, and nothing but consternation filled the breasts 
of all. In the densely populated portions of the city, where the poorer 
and consequently more exposed classes of the community were huddled 
together, the ravages of the epidemic were fearful. The sights that 
met the eye in the alleys, in the attics, cellars and tenement houses of 
the stricken city, were sickening to behold, and well calculated to make 
the heart of the boldest quake with fear. Men who had faced the 
cannon's mouth on many a field of carnage during four 3. ears of the 



JOHN FINN. 66l 

"bloodiest war on record, and to whom fear was hitherto a stranger, 
shook with terror at the presence of an unseen foe, whose fatal and 
unavoidable blow might reach their own door at any moment of the 
night or day. Mothers carried their dead infants around in their arms, 
and filled the air with their shrieks, as the authorities snatched from 
their embrace the pestilence-stricken form of their dead offspring. 
Husbands stood quivering over the emaciated forms of their wives 
writhing beneath the touch of the swift-winged demon, and wives 
howled their useless lamentations over the stark, stiff forms of husbands 
who two hours previous were in health. So frightful was the mortality 
that sufficient help to bury the dead, at times, and in some localities, 
could not be had. In many of the out-of-the-way places the bodies of 
the victims lay for days, putrid and rotten, before they were placed 
beneath the ground. 

It was at such a time as this, Mr. Finn was called upon to fill the 
office of president of the Board of Health. Most men would have 
shrunk from such an undertaking, but not so John Finn. Realizing the 
necessity of immediate action in the premises, he entered upon the 
duties of his office and immediately began to fight the mighty foe. He 
made no distinction of persons ; the poor man as well as the wealthy 
received his kind consideration, and wherever suffering humanity most 
demanded his attention, there, utterly regardless of his own personal 
danger in coming in contact with the dire disease, he was to be found. 
Down among the hovels of the poor, in the alleys reeking with filth and 
disease, in the densely packed tenement houses, in the damp, slimy 
cellars, and hot, stifling attics, where the hand of death was more 
heavily laid, and where the scourge stalked in all its power and might, 
there, at all hours, coffining the dead, many of whom from neglect had 
fallen to pieces and were nothing but masses of sickening corruption, 
there was Mr. Finn to be found. The disease abated, and he was 
publicly thanked by his fellow-citizens, who presented him with a silver 
service as a mark of their appreciation of his noble efforts during the 
dark and gloomy hours which passed over their households. 

In 1867 the Democrats, recognizing his many sterling qualities placed 
him at the head, of their ticket for mayor. He was defeated by James 
S. Thomas by a small majority. 

During 1868- 6g he had the Government contract of supplying all 
the Indians between Omaha, Nebraska, and the mouth of the Yellow- 
stone. 

In 1870 he embarked in the pork-packing business, on the corner of 



662 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Sixth and O' Fallon streets, and did a large and extensive trade until 
1874, when he sold the establishment. 

In 1872 he ran against Taylor for sheriff, and was defeated by one 
vote. 

In 1875, he was appointed dramshop collector, which office he still 
holds. 

In the midst of the multifarious demands of his energetic and active 
career, Mr. Finn has found time to pay some little attention to some of 
our most important financial corporations. He was one of the originators 
of the Butchers and Drovers' Bank, and has been a director and large 
stockholder in many other corporations of a similar nature, including 
some of the most trustworthy insurance companies. His big heart and 
generous nature always led him to take a leading interest in the difierent 
benevolent institutions of the city. He never appeared so much in his 
element as when assisting the poor or needy, and his purse is always 
open to the appeals of worthy charity. The Saint Vincent de Paul 
Society, and other bodies of like nature, know the value of his material 
aid. 

Mr. Finn was married in 18 — , to Miss Mary Josephine Whyte, of 
New York, a lady equally well known with her husband for a kind and 
benevolent disposition, and who is ever ready to relieve the wants of the 
poor out of the ample means with which heaven has blessed her. Of 
this marriage four children are living. 

Notwithstanding the extraordinary amount of real hard labor through 
which he has passed in the last twenty years, Mr. Finn is still robust 
and full of vigor, and feels capable of passing through the same scenes 
should occasion demand it. He has invested largely in real estate, and 
has done much toward the material improvement and embellishment of 
the city. Live and active, he never fails to perceive the necessities of 
the times, and is always found a stern advocate of any measure likely 
to prove a public benefit. He is extremely popular, not alone with his 
fellow-citizens of his own nationality, but with all who know his sterling 
worth as a man and citizen. Socially, he is much sought after, and no- 
where is he admired more than around his own hearthstone, where he 
can give full sway to the promptings of his hospitable and generous. 
Celtic nature. 



THOMAS R. ALLEN, 



/TVHOMAS ROWLAND ALLEN, whose name is so inseparably 
i connected with the Granger movement in the West, was born in 
Frederick county, near Winchester, Virginia, March 15, 1815. 
His parents were both natives of the Old Dominion, and, like himself, 
passed their lives in agricultm-al pursuits. Up to his eleventh year, he 
attended, regularly, the county school of his neighborhood. Between 
that period and the age of eighteen, his attendance was merely during 
the winter season, the labors of the farm claiming his attention during 
the summer months. He then commenced teaching school a portion 
of the year, which avocation he followed until he had gained his 
twenty-third year, when he married Miss Diana Swapp, of Augusta 
county, Virginia, and removed West. 

In 1839, ^^ purchased a farm in Bonhomme township, St. Louis 
county, near Manchester, which he cultivated for seven years with 
much success. 

Forsaking for a time the quiet of country life, he them removed to 
the city, and entered the commercial world of St. Louis, — conducting 
three separate establishments, and reaping a golden harvest as the 
reward of his industry. 

In 1853, while the Pacific Railroad was being pushed westward, he 
purchased quite an extensive tract of land in the western portion of the 
county, and laid off in lots the present flourishing town of Allenton. 
To the Pacific Railroad Company, of which he was a stockholder, he 
donated property for the depot and railroad buildings, and thus founded 
one of the most charming suburbs of St. Louis. 

In 1870, the Granger movement began to attract the attention of the 
inhabitants of Missouri, and he became a member of the first Grange 
established in the State by O. H. Kelly, the organizer of this movement. 

In 1872, having become thoroughly imbued with the principles of this 
body, he began to take a very prominent and active part in all matters 
relating to its welfare, and began traveling in its interest — establishing 
Granges in every portion of Missouri. In 1873, he was made Master of 



664 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the State Grange, which office he still holds. Since that time, by him- 
self, or through his deputies, he has organized 2,030 Granges in 
Missouri alone, having a membership of over 100,000. This in no 
manner includes his labors in the Granger cause outside of the State- 
He has, at various times, and upon special invitation, lectured upon the 
movement in other States, and has done all in his power to strengthen 
the cause to which he is so enthusiastically devoted. He has ever held 
an honorable position in the National Grange, where his sound sense 
and counsel are sought by his brother Grangers, and where his influence 
in their deliberations is great and of much weight. 

He is a fluent and graceful writer, setting his thoughts out in clear 
and concise language, and never failing to interest the reader with the 
honesty of his convictions upon the subject he may have under consid- 
eration. He is the possessor of a large and well selected library ; is a 
constant reader, and never wearies in adding to his already extensive 
stock of knowledge. During the Granger excitement in the West, but 
more especially in Missouri, when the organization of which he was 
the head was misrepresented and traduced by newspaper writers ignor- 
ant of its ends and objects, he secured a column in two St. Louis 
dailies, of different political persuasions, and by his forcible arguments 
and extensive knowledge of his subject, managed to correct public 
opinion on the matter of Grange organizations, and it is said by those 
who know him best, that the labors of his pen were productive of far 
more beneficial results, in this connection, than his own personal en- 
deavors. He has ever taken the liveliest interest in the schools of the 
country, and always belonged to agricultural societies. Beyond holding 
the offices of district assessor and justice of the peace, both of which 
were appointive, he has never meddled in politics, his whole soul and 
energy being exercised in the Granger movement. To his personal 
endeavors in Missouri the success of the Order in other portions of the 
Union is mainly due. 

Although well advanced in years, Mr. Allen is by no means an old 
main, but retains much of the youthful vigor which characterized his 
labors during his prime. Honorable in every walk of life, his personal 
integrity is unquestioned. Social and hospitable in his nature, he is the 
object of adoration in his own domestic circle, and the worthy pos- 
sessor of the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens. 



WM. M. MTHEETERS, M.D. 



(1)\0CT0R WM. M. McPHEETERS was born December 3, 1815, 
-1-J in Raleigh, North Carohna. He is the second son of Reverend 
Wm. McPheeters, D.D., and received a thorough education at 
the State University, at Chapel Hill. Having completed his classical 
studies, he immediately began his course of medicine at the University 
of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and received a diploma as Doctor of 
Medicine in 1840. He spent one year as resident physician of the 
Blakely Hospital in that city, when, in 1841, he removed to St. Louis, 
attracted thither, doubtless, by the rising reputation of the Western city. 

Soon after his settling here, the Doctor, in connection with several 
other medical gentlemen, with a thoughtful benevolence for the suffer- 
ings of his fellow-men, established the first dispensary for the gratuitous 
treatment of the indigent poor of the city, merely one of the many 
works of charity which this kind-hearted gentleman has inaugurated, 
and one which immediately brought relief to hundreds of the poorer 
classes. 

In 1843, he became associated with Dr. M. L. Linton, in the publi- 
cation of the SL Louis Medical and Surgical yournal, and remained 
as one of its principal writers, until its suspension in 1862 on account 
of the war. 

In 1848, he was elected professor of Clinical Medicine and Patholo- 
gical Anatomy in the St. Louis Medical College, and subsequently, 
professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the same institution. 

From 1856 to 1867, he was surgeon-in-charge of the United States 
Marine Hospital at St. Louis. In discharging the duties of all of the 
above positions. Dr. McPheeters received the most unaffected praise 
from all his cotemporaries in the profession as a man of large and 
advanced ideas in matters relating to medicine, and of great skill as a 
surgeon. 

Sympathizing with the South in the late struggle for independence, 
and not being able conscientiously to take the oath of allegiance pre- 
scribed by the Federal authorities, he left his home, his famil}- and his 



666 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

business in the spring of 1862, crossed the line, and joined the fortunes 
of the then rising Confederacy. He was immediately commissioned 
Surgeon in the army, in which capacity he served during the long and 
eventful stmggle, and participated in many hard-fought and bloody 
battles. During this period he acted as Medical Inspector of General 
Sterling Price's army. Chief Surgeon of the division commanded by 
Major-General J. B. Churchill, and finally as Medical Director on 
General Price's staff. 

At the close of the war in 1865, the Doctor returned to St. Louis, and 
resumed his private practice. It was almost like commencing life anew. 
The war and its disastrous consequences, had swept away the work of 
years of toil in the case of thousands who had followed the banner of 
the South, and Dr. McPheeters was no exception to this almost univer- 
sal rule. On the re-organization of the Missouri Medical College in 
1866, he was chosen professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 
and about the same time became medical director of the St. Louis Life 
Insurance Company, in which position he continued as long as the 
company was in existence. At different times the Doctor has been 
honored by his professional brethren in being chosen president of the 
Medical Association of the State of Missouri, and of the St. Louis 
Medical Society, and vice-president of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation. 

He has been twice married: first in 1845, to Miss Martha Seldon, 
daughter of Major Carey Seldon, of Norfolk, Virginia, who only 
survived her marriage about one year. She is spoken of as a lady of 
much refinement and many admirable qualities, and died universally 
regretted by all who knew her. His second marriage was in 1849, 
with Miss Sallie Buchanan, of this city, who still lives, and has blessed 
her home with six children. 

As a physician, it is unnecessary to sa}^ that Dr. McPheeters is held 
in the highest estimation by all who know and come in contact with 
him. Thousands of students, now scattered throughout the great 
West, and who have for the last thirty years received the benefit of his 
sound professional knowledge and scientific attainments as illustrated in 
his lectures, will ever remember him with feelings of the deepest 
respect and gratitude. He has been a most enthusiastic devotee to the 
study of medicine, to which he has given his entire life, and now, his 
long and useful career is most deservedly crowned with its choicest 
rewards : an easy competency, and a reputation unstained by a single 
act that noble manhood would disavow. 



SYLVESTER H. LAFLIN 



MR. SYLVESTER HALL LAFLIN, resident director in St, 
Louis of the Laflin and Rand Powder Company, first saw the 
light of day in the town of Blandford, Massachusetts. This 
important event occurred on the 29th of May 1822. His mother's name 
before marriage was Almira Sylvester, and in honor of her family he 
was christened Sylvester. The family of Laflins originated in Ireland, 
and the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Mathew Laflin, 
was born there. 

When Sylvester was eleven years of age, his father moved to Sauger- 
ties, New York, and engaged in the manufacture of powder. He was 
sent to school for a while, but having a desire to be engaged in some 
kind of business, entered a store at Hyde Park, on the Hudson River, 
and remained two years. He then returned home and attended school 
one year. By this time he had nearly reached the age of nineteen years, 
and began to grow restless and anxious to start out in the world and 
seek his fortune. 

The powder company with which his father was connected, estab- 
lished a branch depot in St. Louis, and it was thought here would be a 
good place for the son to commence business. But it was made known 
to him that he must commence at the bottom and work up, and show 
by the business character he developed, whether he was capable of 
managing an important interest, such as theirs would become in St. 
Louis. He agreed to the conditions, and came on in October 1842, 
binding himself to work for five years ; the wages for the first year to 
be three hundred dollars, with an increase each succeeding year of fift}'- 
dollars. With all the energy characteristic of his nature, Mr. Laflin 
entered upon his business career. For seven years he drove the powder 
wagon, took care of his horses, greased the wheels of the wagon, kept 
it clean, and did many other things connected with the business, which 
were not very agreeable, but highly necessary. At that time he lived 
out on Grand avenue, where the Jordan Nurser};- now is located, and 
was obliged to practice the closest economy to make his salary hold out 



668 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

from year to year. The managers of the powder company were fully 
convinced in the course of time that Mr. Laflin was able to conduct 
their business in St. Louis, however extensive it might become, and to 
him was intrusted the entire charge. His energy increased with the 
increasing responsibilities, and the business became flourishing and 
profitable. 

The office of the company was for twenty-six years located at No. 24 
Water street, but in 1866 it was removed to its present quarters, 218 
North Second street, in a building erected by Mr. Laflin. 

Besides building up a large trade for the powder company, Mr. 
Laflin has been connected with many important public enterprises. His 
energy, enthusiasm, and shrewd, practical sense, have been recognized 
and appreciated by all classes of citizens, and his advice has often 
been sought when great interests were at stake. For nine years he was 
a director of the old State Bank, when its notes were preferable to 
gold ; he aided largely in building the first Lindell Hotel ; was one of 
the most active members of the Pilot Knob Iron Company ; is a director 
in the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, and is also con- 
nected with various banking institutions and insurance companies. 

Mr. Laflin has seldom taken part in political matters, yet once or 
twice has been forced to accept positions of honor and trust at the 
•earnest request of his neighbors. He served the Sixth ward faithfully 
as alderman a few years ago, and without doubt could have been 
re-elected many times if he had consented to serve. He takes great 
pride in the growth and prosperity of St. Louis, and is always ready to 
do his part in pushing forward enterprises, and in building up institu- 
tions that will benefit the city. Thus, in the completion of the great 
bridge, the building of the new Chamber of Commerce, the inaugura- 
tion of new railroad routes, etc., he has manifested the greatest interest, 
and has given them his personal attention. The rapidity with which 
he dispatches business is something wonderful. While other men are 
planning, he is executing. Whenever a sum of money is to be raised 
for a public enterprise, he is generally selected to engineer the move- 
ment ; and his name on a committee means "work" and "success." In 
short, Mr. Laflin is just the man St. Louis needs and could not well 
do without. His genial manners, social qualities and strict integrity are 
well known in the city and throughout the West, and render him 
deservedly popular. 

Mr. Laflin was married February 7, 1850, to Miss Anna Staats, 
daughter of Isaac W. Staats, of Albany, New York, by whom he has 



SYLVESTER H. LAFLIN. 669 

had eight children, five of whom are living. His oldest son, Addison 
H. Laflin, is in business with his father, having charge of the salesroom. 
Mr. Laflin is devotedly attached to his family, and seems to desire 
no greater pleasure than to administer to their happiness. He has been 
too busy through life to spend much time in travehng, or in the 
recreations that many indulge in. Home is good enough for him, he 
says, and thinks but little happiness can be found in idleness. 



THE LAFLIN & RAND POWDER COMPANY. 

One of the largest powder manufacturing companies in the United States, and perhaps 
in the world, is the Latiin & Rand Powder Company. Their mills are as follows : Empire 
Works, Kingston, New York; Orange Works, Newburg, New York; Passaic Works, 
New York; Cressona Works, Pottsville, Pennsylvania; Plattville Works, Plattville, 
Wisconsin; Spring Brook Works, Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Moosic Works, Car- 
bondale, Pennsylvania. They have depots for the sale of their manufactured articles 
in many of the large cities of the United States, a branch of which is located in this 
city, at No. 21S North Second street, managed by S. H. Laflin, Esq. 

The business of manufacturing powder was started more than sixty j'ears ago, by the 
brothers Luther and Matthew Laflin, of whom the present company are the successors. 
At first, it was a private enterprise; but so extensive did it become in the course of years, 
that partners were admitted, and in 1869 a stock company was organized under the name 
of Laflin & Rand Powder Company. The officers and directors are as follows : 

President, Hon. Solomon Turck; vice-president, F. L. Laflin; treasurer and secretary, 
Edward Greene; directors, Joseph M. Boies, Solon Humphreys, Wm. H. Scott, W^m. H. 
Guion, S. H. Laflin, J. T. Petit, Solomon Turck, F. L. Laflin and W. H. Jewett. 

With such an organization, possessing an abundance of capital and all possible facili- 
ties for manufacturing, it could not be otherwise than that they should command the 
trade in powder for North America. Besides the mills already mentioned, the Company 
are now building at Mountain View, New Jersey, and will soon have completed, mills 
which will be the largest and most complete in the world, and costing more than half a 
million dollars. -The powder manufactured by this Company is admitted to be superior 
to all others, and is regarded by the Government as the standard article. 

Mr. S. H. Laflin, the director for this city, has succeeded in introducing this powder 
into all the Western States and Territories. Hunters use it in pursuit of game ; miners 
use it in blasting; the army uses it in fighting hostile Indians; and duelists and others 
use it in redressing their private wrongs. No manufacturing company in this country 
ever had so extensive a field for the disposal of its goods as this, and occupied so much 
of it to advantage. 

Mr. S. H. Laflin, who came to this city when only a boy, has made it the pride of his 
life to build the business up to a first-class standard. 



A. H. BURLINGHAM, D.D. 



\\) MONG the distinguished divines who have graced the pulpit of 
1L\, St. Louis, and whose preaching and christian example have had 
a marked influence in forming the moral character of the masses, 
is Aaron Hale Burlingham, the esteemed pastor of the Second 
Baptist church, a man whose fervent piety, active benevolence, earnest 
and eloquent discourses, and high social qualities combine to give him 
a place among the representative ministers of St. Louis. 

Dr. Burlingham was born February i8, 1822, in Castile, Wyoming 
county. New York. His father was a farmer, of English descent, and 
his mother was Hannah Hale, daughter of Captain Aaron Hale, of Con- 
necticut, a man well-known in that State, for the active part he took in 
the cause of freedom and on the side of the patriots, in the war of 
Independence. 

Young Aaron's education was such as was to be obtained at the 
country schools of the period ; and until his twenty-first year, he worked 
on a farm in summer and taught school in the winter. When he was of 
the above age he prepared himself for college, and when ready, entered 
Madison University, Hamilton, New York. He graduated in 1848 ; 
and in 1850, graduated in the Theological Seminary of the same seat 
of learning. This course of study he entered upon without means, and 
completed through his own exertions. He was ordained as pastor of the 
Grant street Baptist church, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. After remaining 
here one year, he was called to the pastorate of the Baptist church at 
Oswego, New York, which was at that time the largest country church 
in the State. In this vineyard he continued to labor until the autumn of 
1852, when he received and accepted a call from the Howard street 
Baptist church, Boston, Massachusetts, a grave charge for a young 
minister, but one which he filled with credit and satisfaction. 

In 1853 he was chaplain of the Massachusetts Senate. He left 
the Howard street church in the year 1856, when he removed to New 
York, and became pastor of the South Baptist church. He took 
charge of the spiritual welfare of this congregation for nine 3'ears, 



672 BIOGRAPHICAIv SKETCHES. 

when he resigned, and, as a relaxation from years of uninter- 
rupted labor in the ministry, he sailed for Europe with his family. 
While in Paris, for man}^ months Dr. Burlingham was minister of the 
American Chapel, having succeeded Dr. Sunderland, of Washington, 
in that position. He passed a year visiting the principal cities in the 
old world, and improving himself physically and mentally b}^ travel. 

In 1851, while he was pastor at Oswego, New York, Dr. BurHngham 
was married to Miss Emma L. Starr, of Hamilton, New York. His 
family consists of two sons, both living, and now students in Washing- 
ton University. 

In 1866, on his return from Europe, Dr. Burlingham accepted a call 
from the Second Baptist church of St. Louis, and has resided in this 
city ever since in charge of this congregation. Until the winter of 1875, 
this was one of the down-town churches, situated on the corner of 
Sixth and Locust streets. The Sunday evenings' congregations were of 
a mixed character, composed, for the most part, of strangers from the 
different hotels, and young men, clerks in stores, etc., who were 
attracted thither on account of the handy locality, as much as by their 
behef in any estabhshed dogma of the Baptists. The consequence 
was, that a marked difference was noticeable in Dr. Burhngham's 
Sunday morning and Sunday evening sermons ; the former being 
delivered to a select congregation of Christian people, composed chiefly 
of business and professional men and their families, regular members of 
the congregation, and the latter to a congregation called in and 
attracted to this close-at-hand place of worship from the highways and 
by-ways of life, and many of whom congregated there on the Sabbath 
evening as much to kill an hour's time in listening to an eloquent 
sermon, as through any deep interest they had in the tenets of religion 
or respect for the teachings of the Bible. But Dr. BurHngham, in all 
his ministrations, was equal to the emergencies. The stranger drop- 
ping into his church on a Sunday evening and listening to his discourses, 
would instantly come to the conclusion that he was in a free church, 
and while he would have been charmed with the minister's eloquence 
and benefited by the sound doctrines of religion and morality he heard 
preached, he would be at a loss to tell to what particular denomination, 
if any, the eloquent divine belonged. Such, then, was the field in 
which Dr. Burlingham worked for years, and the amount of good he 
wrought among the floating population of this vast city for those years, 
is inestimable. It were a sight to enter the Second Baptist church on a 
cool Sabbath evening in the autumn. As has already been intimated,. 



REV. A. H. BURLINGHAM. 673 

the location made it a very desirable rendezvous for the class of man- 
kind spoken of. The stranger from a distance, the clerk in a store, the 
mechanic without any settled conviction of religious duty, the laborer, 
the apprentice and the factory girl, all were there to be found beneath 
one roof, and, for the most part, possessing different ideas upon the 
grand truths of religion, but all drinking in the words of wisdom, and 
firmly agreeing with the morality as expounded by the speaker. It is 
needless to state that the amount of good Dr. Burlingham did while in 
this church and among the religious waifs of humanity, is incalculable. 

The congregation, however, determined to move up town, and the 
Second Baptist church is now situated on the corner of Beaumont and 
Locust streets, and, as may be supposed, the congregations are com- 
posed of regular attendants, and not quite so mixed. Dr. Burlingham 
still holds his position as pastor. 

As a lecturer. Dr. Burlingham never fails to attract audiences from 
the best circles of society. Marked for intelligence as well as breadth, 
his last course of lectures, which were delivered in his new church, 
upon "The Women of the Bible," drew large numbers, and are spoken 
of in the highest terms by the press of the city. Possessed of a fine 
flow of language, easy and graceful in his delivery, of good personal 
appearance, a rich, mellow voice. Dr. Burlingham is one of the most 
fascinating pulpit orators of the day. In his treatment of popular evils, 
which he frequently discusses in his pulpit, he never fails to stamp vice, 
in whatever form it may raise its head, with infamy, especially gambling, 
intemperance, and prostitution, the pitfalls into which the young man 
or woman from the country, unaccustomed to the snares and tempta- 
tions of city life, is most likely to tumble. His contributions to the 
city press, in his controversy with an ex-mayor of St. Louis, are still 
remembered as masterly and manly productions, full of the profoundest 
morality and piety. 

As a minister of the gospel, Dr. Burlingham ranks among the first in 
the West ; as a scholar and theologian, he has few superiors. His 
genial and sociable nature makes him ever welcome in the polite circles 
of society, while his devotion to the people, and his pure and upright 
life, endear him to his congregation, and guarantee him the respect and 
esteem of his fellow-citizens. 



43 




WesiemEiigim-iii^CoiTipain'orSLlxjuis. 




t^oioajoen 



t« 



THOMAS KENNARD, M.D. 



CA)M0NG the eminent medical men of St. Louis, few are better or 
-I- jL more favorably known than the president of the St. Louis Medi- 
cal Society — Dr. Thomas Kennard. 

He is the eldest son of Dr. Thomas C. Kennard and Jane E. Ken- 
nard, who, though well advanced in years, are still, at this writing, in 
the enjoyment of good health and all the comforts of life, at their old 
homestead, Elmwood, Kent county, Maryland, where they have lived 
nearly fifty years, and where his mother was born. The subject of this 
sketch was the fourth child and eldest son, and was born June i, 1834. 
His ancestors were the Fells, the Bonds, and the Hansons — all distin- 
guished names in the history of Maryland. His father was for many 
years the most popular and successful physician in his county, and 
realized enough from his practice to retire from the arduous duties of 
professional life nearly a quarter of a century ago, and since then has 
devoted his time to the pursuit of agriculture and the management of 
his valuable farms. He was not only a pioneer, but an enthusiastic 
advocate, of scientific farming, and is recognized by everyone to have 
no superior among the agriculturists of Maryland. He is a man of 
wonderful natural mental vigor and good education, and his ability and 
worth are admitted by all who know him. 

His son, of whom we write, is of the same temperament, and is 
possessed of many of the striking characteristics of his father. In his 
infancy and childhood he was surrounded by all the comforts and pleas- 
ures that wealth and position could afford, and through the happy 
influence of his parents' teaching and example, he reached maturity 
free from all the vices usually incident to such surroundings. Like his 
father, he was devotedly attached to country life. Until sixteen years 
of age he attended an excellent school, in the vicinity of his home, 
and which was mainly supported by his father. Here he not only 
acquired a thorough elementary English education, but also became 
quite proficient in the classics, and was so far advanced in Latin 
and Greek that he was enabled to graduate with distinction at St. 
Timothy's Hall, a military college, near Baltimore, two years after- 
ward. At the age of eighteen he matriculated at the University of 



676 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Virginia, and in two years more was graduated in five departments of 
that renowned institution. His third year at that institution was devoted 
to the study of medicine, during which time he became thoroughly 
grounded in the theoretical part of his profession. In the fall of 1855, 
he went to New York City, where he continued to prosecute his 
medical studies, at the University Medical College, then the largest and 
most flourishing medical school in the metropolis. 

' In the spring of 1856, shortly after his graduation, he accepted the 
appointment of house surgeon and physician to the Jews' Hospital, 
which place, after some months of service, he resigned to accept a 
similar position in the great venereal hospital on Blackwell's Island, 
where he remained until declining health admonished him to abandon 
the hospitals altogether. Returning to his home in Maryland, he prac- 
ticed his profession one year, but seeing that the field was too circum- 
scribed in the country for one to gain more than a local reputation, he 
decided to remove West, and came to St. Louis in January 1858, and 
at once commenced the practice of his profession. Soon after arriving 
here, being anxious to see something of the Western wilds, and savage 
life, he accepted the appointment of surgeon to one of the American 
Fur Company's steamers, which proceeded to a higher point on the 
Missouri River than any boat had previously ventured. A graphic 
description of this trip, written by the Doctor, was published in the 
Missouri Re-piiblican, and the Democrat, on his return to St. Louis. 

In 1859, ^^' Kennard, in conjunction with two medical friends, 
established the St. Louis Dispensary, which was supported by voluntary 
contributions of benevolent people, and which met with such unprece- 
dented success that, had it been continued to the present time, it 
would have become a mammoth institution. Circumstances connected 
with the outbreak of the war, however, induced the Doctor to close its 
doors ; and although its continuance would have contributed vastly to 
his reputation ' and personal aggrandizement, he has never endeavored 
to resuscitate it, because he became convinced that it was almost 
impossible to obviate the imposition which would be practiced upon 
such a charity by unworthy applicants for relief. Ever willing and 
glad to do his full share of charity practice, he still knew full well that 
promiscuous, gratuitous treatment of the poor was not charity, but an 
imposition — wrong and injurious to all the parties concerned, and a 
direct disadvantage to his professional brethren. He therefore, as a 
matter of principle, sacrificed self-interest to the public welfare, and 
ever since has strenuously endeavored to convince his professional 
brethren and the city authorities how necessary it is to carefully guard 



THOMAS KENNARD, M.D. 677 

the access to all eleemosynary institutions, lest, in our efforts to do 
charity, we encourage pauperism and countenance impostors ; for two- 
thirds of mankind will live upon the labor of the other third, if allowed 
to do so. His judgment in this particular has been fully confirmed by 
the unprecedented growth of a city institution of the kind, which, 
within tae last decade, has become such an outrageous imposition upon 
the pubHc, and swindle of the medical profession and the tax-payers of 
St. Louis, and of which result we were duly warned by a scathing 
report of the Doctor, made upon the same institution to the St. Louis 
Medical Society some six years ago, and at the time unanimously 
adopted by that body. He has always vehemently opposed "humbug- 
gery" of all kinds, and more especially in the form which has been 
tolerated within the ranks of the profession, as a means of advertising 
the pretensions of ignorant men. 

Entertaining a high estimate of the requirements of a good physician, 
he has always strenuously opposed the multiplication of medical schools 
and consequent cheapening of medical education ; and by his vehement 
denunciation of what he terms the mutual admiration and adverdsing 
schemes, has made enemies among the cheap medical professors. He 
has several times been offered professorships which, from principle, 
he declined to accept. 

Dr. Kennard is a highly intellectual man, of quick perceptions and 
sharp discrimination, eloquent, and always speaks to the point. His 
being possessed of a thorough classical and medical education in com- 
bination with his innate talents, explains why he is a very successful 
practitioner. He loves science for science's sake ; is a hard student and 
enthusiastic in his efforts to cultivate and elevate the standard of the 
medical profession. He has written a large number of scientific articles 
which have appeared in the standard periodicals of the day, which, as well 
as his numerous publications stored up in the records of the St. Louis 
Medical Society, is ample proof of his superior rank in the profession. 
He is also a pubHc-spirited man, and has, by word and deed, done 
much for the benefit of our city, pardcularly in regard to pubhc hygiene 
and general sanitary measures. He is a high-toned gentleman and a 
man of firm and fixed principles — a man in the full sense of the word. 
But he is also fearless in all his actions, following closely the dictations 
of his consience, regardless of all consequences, even those sometimes 
injurious to his own interests. In this respect he is a rare exception to 
the multitude of men. He hates all kinds of isms and cliques, and 
stands often alone as an uncompromising character. He has a fine 
sense of duty, right and justice, and would never tolerate a wrong to be 



678 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

done to any one if he could help it. Intrepidity, integrity and candor 
are some of the chief attributes of his character. He is a true and 
faithful friend to those who deserve friendship. From all this it becomes 
patent that, in our hypercritical time he must have enemies. And he 
has them. This, however, is rather an honor than a damage. But on 
the other hand he is duly appreciated and highly esteemed by all good 
men who know him in and out of his profession. 

He is a member of the American Medical Association, the Missouri 
State Medical Association, the St. Louis Academy of Science, and the 
St. Louis Medical Society, and has filled every office in the last men- 
tioned, and been one of its most active members ever since he came to 
our city. He has also filled almost every office in the State Associa- 
tion. His contributions to medical literature have been copied in the 
medical journals of the day. 

Among the many articles that he has written, we may mention his 
essays upon epidemic cholera, diptheria, variola and vaccination, medi- 
cal experts, sunstroke, the mutual relations between druggists and 
physicians, several papers upon venereal disease, and one upon medi- 
cine among the North American Indians ; their superstitious ideas con- 
cerning it ; their horrible mode of making doctors ; their practice of 
necromancy, together with an account of the diseases prevalent among 
them, and their mode of treatment. 

Besides this, the Doctor was for several years recording and report- 
ing secretary of the St. Louis Medical Society, during which time he 
published very voluminous, graphic and accurate reports of the discus- 
sions before that body, which were extensively copied. 

He was also an enthusiastic advocate for the rigid enforcement of the 
social evil law in St. Louis, and, regardless of all personal conse- 
quences and the injury that it did his private practice, he continued to 
be uncompromisingly in favor of it until it was finally repealed. From 
the terrible condition of affairs here since the repeal of the law, the 
Doctor is fully convinced of the correctness and justice of the position 
he then assumed, and knows that there is no other feasible plan of 
controlling this monster evil. 

In i860, he married Miss Edmonia H. Gates, the daughter of Judge 
Owen G. Gates, an eminent lawyer and a distinguished public man in 
Kentucky, and for several years Attorney-General of that State. By 
this marriage he has two children — a boy and girl. 

Long may he live yet, an ornament to the medical profession and 
to our community, and not relax his noble eflbrts, by which he has 
hitherto earned the epithet "every inch a man." 



STEPHEN M. EDGELL. 



ONE of the most favorably known and successful merchants of 
St. Louis, is the man whose name is at the head of this sketch. 
He is one of the few men still living who have not only witnessed, 
but have been active participants in, most of the momentous under- 
takings that, during the last half century, have resulted in building up 
not only St. Louis, but many of the principal cities of the West. 

He was born in Westminster, State of Vermont, January 14, 1810. 
His earl}' education was obtained at the common schools of the State. 
At the age of fourteen he entered a store, determined to become a mer- 
chant, where he remained for two years, working for a salary of one 
hundred dollars a year, and his board. He then longed for more 
schooling, knowing that to be the foundation of success in life. He 
accordingly attended school for a year, at the end of which he returned 
to mercantile life. 

In 1828, Mr. Edgell left the State of Vermont, and went to Sher- 
brook, Lower Canada, where he established himself in the dry goods 
trade. Here, by a strict application to his own afiairs, and honorable 
dealing, which so characterized all his transactions in after-life, he 
succeeded in building up quite a prosperous trade. At this time Canada, 
as well as the New England States, was flooded with books, pamphlets, 
and newspaper articles, concerning the resources of the great West, the 
perusal of which had the effect of inflaming his curiosity and tempting 
his commercial spirit. These publications, added to the reports of 
United States officers, setting forth the fertility of the soil and the 
opportunities for business, induced him to try his fortune in fields of 
enterprise so inviting. Accordingly, in 1834 ^^ closed out his business 
in Canada, and started for Chicago with the intention of buying a lot 
and starting a store. The journey from the confines of Vermont to 
Chicago was not performed in those days with as much ease and com- 
fort to the traveler as at present. It was overland and by stage, and 
took thirty days to accomplish, the greater portion of the way through a 
wild, uninhabited region of country, and beset with many dangers. On 
his arrival in Chicago, the spirit of real estate speculation which was 



68o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

rife there, divested him of his original intention, and led him to invest 
his funds in land. Soon after his arrival in that city, he and George 
Smith entered eighty acres there, and one hundred and sixty acres 
near the present city of Joliet. In 1835-' 36, he bought property in 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to the amount of $26,000, and had paid nearly 
$20,000 on the purchase money ; he also bought a lot, upon which a 
portion of the Trenton House now stands, for $22,500, and had paid 
$14,000 on it, but the financial revulsion and shrinkage in values of 
1837 came on, and he gave up these purchases to pay the small balances 
due on them, and went to clerking at forty dollars per month. 

While residing in Chicago, business transactions called him from time 
to time to St. Louis. It was during these visits Mr. Edgell became 
impressed with the commercial destiny of our city, and in 1838 he 
became a permanent resident, as manager of the business of George 
Smith & Co. In 1842 he opened a commission house in New Orleans, 
and in 1843, a house of a similar character in St. Louis, managing the 
house here himself, and intrusting the one in New Orleans to his 
partners. During the Mexican war, the house in New Orleans entered 
into large speculations and encountered severe losses, and Mr. Edgell 
became so dissatisfied with this branch of his business that he forced a 
dissolution of the partnership, at a personal loss of about one hundred 
thousand dollars. Freed from the entanglements of a copartnership 
which must have been fearfully distasteful to him, when freedom was 
purchased at such an exorbitant sum, he continued business under his 
individual management, and was soon enabled to command a large and 
profitable business, which has been successfully carried on ever since. 

For twenty-five years he has been president of the State Mutual 
Insurance Company, and for the same length of time, a director in the 
Marine Insurance Company. He is now largely interested in the 
Kansas Pacific Railroad, and is one of its directors. He is president 
of the Marine Insurance Company, and president of the Exchange 
Bank, one of the strongest and most respected financial institutions in 
the State. 

His thorough business qualifications and his well-known executive 
ability, have always been in good demand in boards of directors of 
different organizations, and his public spirit has led him to accept of 
many such trusts. His devotion to his friends, and his strict probity in 
all his business relations, are well-known to every merchant of St. 
Louis, and have met with that return of warm personal regard, and 
financial success, such distinguishing qualities richly merit. 



CHARLES HENRY PECK. 



IT has been well said that the architectural beauty of St. Louis 
commands the unqualified admiration of every visitor, come they 
from the metropolitan cities of our own country, or be they way- 
farers from the furthermost limits of Europe. The soHd masses of 
brick and mortar that greet the eye upon our commercial thorough- 
fares, the gigantic structures of granite and marble that raise their proud 
heads heavenward, the palatial mansions and brown-stone fronts of the 
avenues, the habitations of our bankers, professional men and merchant 
princes, adorned and beautified with every surrounding that a cultivated 
taste and enormous wealth could suggest or command, all combine to 
arrest the attention and amazement of all who behold them. To the 
man from whose brains much of the above beauty has emanated, no 
little praise is due. In this connection may be mentioned Mr. Charles 
H. Peck, whose name as an architect is as well-known as that of any 
other in the great West. 

Charles Henry Peck was born in the city of New York, September 
21, 1817. His father was a builder, but died when Charles was but 
three years old. His mother, upon the death of her husband, removed 
to Monroe county. New Jersey, where her father had quite an extensive 
farm. Here Charles remained until his fifteenth year, and received 
quite a liberal education. He then returned to New York City, and 
entered the office of an architect and builder, with whom he remained 
until he was twenty, and where he obtained his profession. 

In the fall of 1838 he turned his attendon to the West, and, in look- 
ing up some eligible site wherein to follow his profession, he chose 
St. Louis. 

At this period, the city may be said to have been in its infancy, but 
.gave undoubted indications of future greatness. Yoiing Peck was not 
slow to perceive the fine field for the exercise of his ambitions thus 
presented to him, nor was he less active in seizing upon the opportuni- 
ties oftered for forwarding himself in life. He commenced work as a 
master-builder, at first in a small way ; but in a growing city, where 



682 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

brains and willing hands were as necessary as money, his energy and 
business capacity soon brought him into prominence. Ere many years 
had passed away, Mr. Peck was looked upon as one of the leading 
builders in St. Louis. Since his arrival in St. Louis he has been in 
some manner connected with over one thousand buildings, many of 
them ornaments to the city, and among the finest and largest in the 
West. There is scarcely a street in St. Louis that does not contain 
some magnificent stinicture, at once a monument of his own professional 
ability, and the energy and public spirit of some enterprising citizen. 

In the midst of the many demands his own proper calling has had 
upon his time, Mr. Peck has given much attention to all manner of 
public enterprises. For many years he has been interested in develop- 
ing the iron resources of Missouri, and was one of the originators of an 
enterprise which did more to place the mineral wealth of the State 
before the world than all others. Previous to the late war he was 
president of the Pilot Knob Iron Company, and when, during this dark 
struggle, the works were entirely destroyed, he, in company with several 
friends, purchased the ground and built the first furnace west of the 
Mississippi, for the purpose of testing whether Illinois coal would melt 
and work Missouri ore into pig iron. This fact was successfully 
demonstrated, and it was soon acknowledged that St. Louis was one 
of the best points in the United States for the manufacture of iron in 
all its departments. From this have sprung the vast and gigantic enter- 
prises which form a large amount of the wealth of the city, and are to 
be found in and around Carondelet in the shape of iron works. As 
soon as it was ascertained that Illinois coal was available for smelting 
purposes, Mr. Peck, and some dozen of his friends, built the Vulcan 
Iron Works, now in successful operation and one of the largest manu- 
factories of iron in the United States. Tlie Bessemer Steel Works will 
soon form an important addition to the enterprise, which will leave it 
without a parallel in America. Mr. Peck is now a director in the 
company. 

He was one of the incorporators, and for a number of years a director 
in the Missouri Pacific Railroad. He was also a director in the Me- 
chanics' Bank, and Provident Savings Institution. He served repeat- 
edly as vice-president of the St. Louis Gas Company. He has been, 
and is now, president of the City Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and 
has been president of the St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Company, 
and numerous other important corporations under the general incorpo- 
ration law for manufacturing and building purposes. 



CHARLES HENRY PECK. 683 

Many years ago, in order to facilitate his own proper business, Mr. 
Peck built one of the largest planing mills in the United States, on the 
corner of Fourteenth and Poplar streets, and the increased demand for 
the product of his mill caused him to add such improvements to it that 
it soon became one of the recognized and most important industries o£ 
St. Louis. 

Thus it will be seen that Mr. Peck's life has been an active one, and 
that his enterprises were such as added to the general wealth and welfare 
of the city. He is one of those restless, energetic business men, whose 
whole life is an incessant batde ; whose clear brain brings order out of 
chaos, and whose touch transmutes the baser metals into gold. It is 
needless to say that he has exerted, and still exerts, a great influence on 
the affairs of his adopted city. His work has been widely extended, 
and will be felt and recognized long after he shall have crossed the 
confines of time and eternity. 

Mr. Peck was married in 1840 to Miss Rebecca Adams, of St. Louis, 
but previously of Philadelphia, a lady possessed in an eminent degree 
of all the virtues and attainments so characteristic of the daughters of 
the City of Brotherly Love. His family consists of nine children, seven 
boys and two girls, and all remarkable for their brightness and intelli- 
gence. 

Mr. Peck has never exhibited any political aspirations, but has 
confined his attention strictly to business matters, contenting himself 
with the privilege of voting in common with his fellow-citizens. 

He is below the medium height, but stoutly built. His features indi- 
cate his character. There is the nervous, energetic determination of 
the man appearing in every line and every expression. His manners 
are those of the genuine Western man, frank, ready and courteous. 
He is a plain man, whom prosperity has not elated. He looks with 
pride to his early life, with its struggles and hardships, not so much 
to contrast it with his present position as to teach the lessons of his 
success. 

In social life he is universally respected and esteemed by all classes 
of our citizens. He has amassed a large fortune, which he bestows 
with a lavish hand upon the meritorious. In the large circle of his 
, acquaintances he forms his opinions of men regardless of worldly 
wealth and position. He has labored, and not in vain, for the welfare 
of the city of his adoption, and enjoys in a marked degree that reward 
of the honest, upright citizen, the respect and confidence of his fellow- 



684 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

man. He is still in the prime of his manhood, his step as light and 
elastic as ever. He bears the burden of his years lightly, and shows 
but few traces of the cares and perplexities inseparable from an active, 
busy life. 



ISAIAH FORBES, D. S. 



^R. ISAIAH FORBES may justly be styled the father of dental 
JL^ surgery in St. Louis, if not indeed of the West. He was born in 
Albany, New York, in the year 1810. His father, Nathaniel 
Forbes, was an architect by profession, of Scotch-Irish descent. His 
mother was Ruth Lyman, of Connecticut. His education was con- 
ducted at the public and private schools of his native city. Even as a 
school-boy he manifested those lofty notions of personal honor and 
manliness for which he has been known in St. Louis well nigh on to 
half a century. 

At the age of about fourteen, young Isaiah went to New York, and 
engaged with a brother-in-law in mercantile pursuits, with whom he 
remained until the great fire of 1835. After this disastrous event, he 
began the study of dental surgery with the well-known firm of Ambler 
& Kingsbury, whose rooms, in those days, were at No. 3 Park Place, 
and attended lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. This 
was while that elegant writer and extensive traveler. Dr. Mayo, whose 
literary labors are acknowledged among the finest in the country, was 
demonstrator of anatomy in that institution. Dr. Forbes was always a 
hard student, and was the possessor of one of the most complete 
private libraries in New York at that day, to which he applied himself 
with unremitting zeal, perfecting himself in the profession he had 
adopted, and storing his mind with the standard literature of the period. 

In 1836 he went into practice for himself, on Broadway, near Court- 
land street, where he remained one year, when, in 1837, with a view of 
finding a more profitable field for the exercise of his professional 
attainments, he came West, and, in April of that year, landed in 
St. Louis, where he has practiced his profession ever since, and where, 
for a period of thirty-eight years, he has worked to extend the influence 
and raise the standard of dental surgery. His life-long experience, his 
earnest labors in the ranks of his profession, all combine to give him a 
front place among its members, and make him a representative man of 
his class. 



686 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

A few years previous to his arrival here, the pubhc school system 
had been inaugurated, and was demanding the serious attention of every 
contemplative mind. Dr. Forbes had seen the workings of this 
admirable system of education in the East, and personally having 
derived benefits from it, was an example of its inestimable value. 
His admiration for the public school system was unbounded, and was 
only equaled by his great desire to forward public education. It was 
not long before he was recognized as one of the leading spirits of the 
city, and was chosen by his fellow-citizens to represent their interests 
in the School Board. A more happy selection could not have been 
made, as the sequel proved. No member of the Board brought more 
enthusiam to his labors in the cause of public school education than did 
Dr. Forbes, and so satisfactorily did he perform the duties of his office 
that he occupied the same seat for fifteen years, filled the president's 
chair for two terms, and was chairman of the Teachers' Committee — the 
most important committee of the Board. Such a recognition of a 
man's services by his compeers is a sufficient guarantee of his integrity 
and ability. For years he labored in the cause of this cherished object, 
until by degrees he saw it unfold and expand itself into the vast structure 
it now is, the centre of a grand system of harmony, shedding the bless- 
ings of education on thousands of children, who, under the old regime, 
were doomed to grope through life in intellectual darkness. So long as 
the records of the School Board of St. Louis exist, so long as the many 
magnificent public schools of this city continue to be occupied, so long 
will the name of Dr. Forbes be remembered in this connection. 

During the administration of Mayor Mullanphy, he was an efficient 
and active member of the Board of Aldermen, and by his counsel and 
participation in city afiairs, assisted materially in the good management 
of the city government. In the exercise of his duties as chairman of 
the Hospital Committee, he was ever attentive to the wants and suffer- 
ings of the unfortunate class of human beings, whom the vicissitudes 
of fortune drove to the wards of those public institutions for shelter. 
He was a director in the Bank of Missouri for four years, where by his 
good advice he assisted in the administration of the affairs of that finan- 
cial institution. His brethren in the same profession have been pleased 
to honor him in a marked degree, making him president of the Ameri- 
can Dental Association, and vice-president of the Southern Dental 
Association. 

Dr. Forbes was married in 1845, to Miss Cornelia Staats, who still 
lives, a lady of much refinement and personal beauty, and one of the 



ISAIAH FORBES, D.S. 687 

descendants of the old Knickerbockers of New York. There are five 
children, the eldest of whom is married to James H. Brookmire, Esq., 
the leading grocery man of the Mississippi Valley. 

Dr. Forbes is now one of the patriarchs of the dental profession in 
the West, and is known as one of its most prominent members in 
America. As a citizen, he stands high, both in the public and private 
walks of life. A man of man}- admirable qualifications, of a genial 
and social nature, added to a pure and honorable record through life, 
he very deservedly possesses the esteem and regard of all who have the 
honor of his acquaintance. 





V0.^As3s2!^vXCs->Qv. ^\^. 



FRANK G. PORTER, M.D. 



/T\ HE present work would be incomplete if it failed to make a record 
JL of the lives of those men who have risen to professional eminence 
in St. Louis, as well as those who, by a series of successful efforts, 
have gained a position in the first ranks of our citizens as bankers, 
merchants and business men, or who have attained great wealth, or 
contributed to the material advancement of the city in the purely busi- 
ness walks of life. No city on the continent can furnish the same 
long list of distinguished names, in the professions, of men who have 
achieved distinction as doctors, lawyers, scholars and divines, as St. 
Louis. Among men of this class, whose names and reputations belong 
peculiarly to the city, is the subject of the present sketch — Dr. Frank 
G. Porter. 

He is descended from a hardy, stern race of Scotch Highlanders, 
who were Covenanters, and suffered much for religion's sake — many of 
them found death at the stake, and were otherwise tortured because of 
their religious belief — so that the blood of martyrs courses through his 
veins. His grandfather on his father's side, and his great-grandfather 
on his mother's side, emigrated from Scotland to this country. His 
father was the first white male child ever born in Washington county, 
Pennsylvania. His mother was a native of Westmoreland county, same 
State. He himself was born in New Castle, Lawrence county, Penn- 
sylvania, Jul}^ 24, 1829, and is consequently at present forty-five years 
old. He is the third child and second son of his parents. 

From his birth, like Samuel of old, he was dedicated to the Church. 
His parents were Old School Presbyterians, with Covenanter charac- 
teristics, and, to carry out an old tradition of the family, that one of 
each generation should be dedicated to the service of God, it was 
intended by this worthy and piously-inclined couple that this son should 
be a preacher. 

From his infancy up to his twelfth year, all the instruction he 
received was at the hands of his mother. At that age he first entered 
school, and was so far advanced as to be able to take up Latin, algebra. 



690 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

surveying, etc., from which it may be gathered that his mother lacked 
no opportunity of advancing the studies of her son. After one or two 
terms at a classical school, he was domiciled with the Rev. Arthur B. 
Bradford, of Enon Valley, Pennsylvania. He became his private 
pupil, and at the same time attended school at the celebrated "Old 
Stone Academy," at Darlington, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. This 
institution of learning is justly distinguished for the number and char- 
acter of the men who studied within its walls, numbers of whom 
have become distinguished in the various professions throughout the 
country. He remained an inmate of Rev. Mr. Bradford's house until 
his sixteenth year. It was under his roof he first formed the acquaint- 
ance of "Grace Greenwood." While here, in addition to his studies in 
Latin, Greek, and the higher mathematics, he read Church history and 
elementary works on theology, all of which was preparatory to his 
entering upon the great mission in life for which his parents intended 
him — the Church. 

From childhood, his great desire in life was to be a physician, and as 
he advanced in years, this desire took the form of an ambition, and 
formed a part of his youthful aspirations. His mother was an invalid, 
and from his childhood he was her nurse, which, doubtless, had some- 
thing to do in forming this great desire in the heart of her son. When 
but ten years old, he was present at the amputation of the leg, and 
after the operation had been performed, he took the amputated limb 
and carefully examined it, and besought the surgeon to permit him to 
keep it. This all-absorbing desire to become a physician was so strong, 
and manifested itself in so many ways, that his playmates invariably 
called him "Doctor," When he was but twelve years old, he adjusted 
the fractured thigh of a companion who had met with an accident. 
Medical assistance had been summoned, but before the Doctor arrived 
he had obtained permission, and succeeded in adjusting the fracture, 
and placing it in a "box splint." When the Doctor arrived, and 
examined it, he stated that it was well done, and let it alone. The boy 
made a perfect recovery without shortening or other deformity. 

The desire to be a doctor strengthened with his increasing years, and 
so great a hold had it upon the mind of the young student, that when 
he was sixteen years old, \.^ had fully determined to study medicine 
instead of theology, as was his father's desire. Having arrived at this 
conclusion, he wrote his determination to his father, asking his concur- 
rence in his resolution. To this his father, who was a man of great 
firmness, objected, and refused under any circumstances to listen to, or 



FRANK G. PORTER, M.D. 69I 

second, his son's aspirations. The result was, he was disinherited and 
sent adrift on the world with a "Mexican dollar" as the foundation of a 
fortune. 

Grieved to the soul at this harsh treatment from his father, but not 
discouraged, the disinherited young man sat down and mapped out his 
future intentions, and put upon paper just how much he intended to do 
in a certain time. But money he must have to gain the object of his 
ambition, and to enable him to pursue his studies. To obtain this, he 
determined to teach, and accordingly obtained a school — teaching and 
studying in the winter, and devoting all his energies during summer 
to study. After teaching one or two terms in the North, he went 
South, and taught an academy at Belmont, Mississippi, and also at 
Florence, Alabama. During his residence in the South, his high spirit 
and keen sense of honor, on more than one occasion led him into 
encounters under the "code" which might have ended fatally. He 
fought two duels, in each of which he wounded his antagonist, and 
acted as second in four other affairs of this nature. His life during 
these years seems to have been a series of adventures, all of which go 
to prove the indomitable energy of the young man, and the high and 
manly sense of honor which animated him. At one time, in Louisiana, 
his mone}' became exhausted, and not having enough to pay for his 
night's lodging, and being too proud to beg, he climbed a tree and 
made a booth of its branches, and slept there in order to protect him- 
self against the attacks of prowling wild beasts. 

Before he was nineteen he returned to Pennsylvania, and commenced 
the study of medicine regularly, wath Dr. D. B. Packard and Dr. John 
T. Ray, at Greenville, Pennsylvania. He taught and studied as before, 
remaining there about a year, struggling against that hardest of all 
fates, an empty purse ; and making every honorable endeavor to com- 
plete his professional studies. 

But the wheel of fortune was about to make a turn in his favor ; his 
long-continued efforts were at last to be rewarded. About this time an 
old gentleman of means, who took a great interest in his welfare, offered 
to furnish him money at six per cent., taking his personal note for the 
same, in order to enable him to complete his course and graduate. His 
kind offer was accepted, and young Porter went to Cleveland, Ohio, 
and became the pupil of Dr. Horace A. Ackley, one of the most cele- 
brated surgeons of the day. Here he remained until the spring of 1851, 
when he graduated at the Cleveland Medical College. After receiving 
his diploma, and following the advice of Prof. Ackley, he located at 



692 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Conneautville, Pennsylvania. He was so young that he was called the 
"Boy Doctor." For the first few months he did little or nothing in his 
new home, but he was far from despairing. He knew that the day 
would come when all his labors, all his trials and anxieties would be 
rewarded, and he would reap the golden harvest which is in store for 
such as deserve it. 

A little circumstance occurred about this time which promised, and 
in fact secured for him, some local reputation. The wife of the editor 
of the local paper drove out one afternoon for an airing, as was her 
wont ; her horse became unmanageable and ran away. The carriage 
was wrecked, and she received an upward and backward dislocation of 
the hip joint. Four of the physicians of the place were called in, but 
failed to reduce the dislocation. Dr. Porter was sent for — gave the 
patient chloroform, which was then a new remedy, reduced the luxation, 
and received unbounded praise through the editor's paper for the man- 
ner in which he treated his wife. 

About this time, the typhoid fever became epidemic in that section of 
the State ; more than half the cases attacked, died. Dr. Porter was not 
called to see any of them until the night of December 20, 185 1. A 
party came from about four miles distance in the country, in quest of a 
physician. They called on all the doctors in town, but all refused to 
go. The night was stormy, with about four inches of snow on the 
ground and more coming down ; as a last resort, they called upon the 
"Boy Doctor." He went, treated the case, and treated it successfully. 
It recovered, and more came, and by the first of April of the next 
spring he had treated sixty-one cases of typhoid fever, all of whom got 
well. From that time on, as long as he resided in that place he had all 
he could attend to in a professional way. 

In the fall of 185 1, Dr. Porter married Miss Mattie M. Townsend, of 
Troy, New York, a graduate of Mrs. Willard's celebrated Ladies' 
Seminary. Miss Townsend was a lady of high culture, and unsur- 
passed in moral worth and excellence. She was all that a woman or 
wife should be. 

In the spring of 1854, ^^ began to look up another location for the 
practice of his profession. He determined to settle in the South or 
West. He visited Chicago, and all the large towns of Illinois and 
Iowa, and finally resolved to pitch his tent in St. Louis. He did not 
fail to see the many advantages this city, above all others, held out to 
the young professional man of ability and perseverance. In May 1854, 
he arrived in St. Louis with seventy-five dollars in his purse, a stranger, 



FRANK G. PORTER, M . D . 693 

without friends ; his^ individuality lost, but not his energy. The prospect, 
to say the least, was not at all flattering. He was again forced to bor- 
row money to live on ; the first year he was in St. Louis he did not earn 
enough to pay office rent, and that was but eight dollars per month. 
The troubles in Kansas were then at their height, and party feeling was 
ver}'- strong. The fact of his being from the North doubtless operated 
against him, under the then existing circumstances, especially as he 
took the Free-soil side of the question. He first became acquainted 
with General F. P. Blair during the great riot of August 1854, ^"^ 
assisted in quelling that riot. 

From 1854 ^o i860 he applied himself assiduously to the practice of 
his profession in St. Louis, and his labors were well rewarded. He 
soon found himself in the midst of a large and daily-increasing practice,- 
from the best circles of society. He became a member of the St. 
Louis Medical Society, the Missouri State Medical Association, and the 
American Medical Association. He has held the distinguished posi- 
tions of vice-president and president of the St. Louis Medical Society, 
positions which he filled to the entire satisfaction of his professional 
brethren. 

Early in 1861, he joined the Union army as Brigade Surgeon. He 
remained in the army until the last days of 1865. He was with Gener- 
als Totten, Schofield, Herron, Fisk and Grant. He participated in 
thirteen hard-fought battles ; quite a number of minor engagements ; 
was "bushwhacked" three times, and captured once. At the battle of 
Prairie Grove, Arkansas, single-handed and alone, he turned back two 
six-gun batteries that were in full retreat, and thus saved the day for 
the Union. One of his most noted transactions during the war, was 
the planning and constructing of the most extensive field hospital of the 
Rebellion, at Hamburg, Tennessee, after the battle of Pittsburg Land- 
ing. Harpers'' Weekly reproduced it, and the New York Herald and 
Tribune noticed it in the highest terms of praise. The farthest east 
he was during the war, was Fort Donelson, Tennessee ; south. New 
Orleans ; west. Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, and north. Fort Laramie. 

In the summer of 1865 he was ordered to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 
as his headquarters, where he remained until the last days of the same 
year, when he was mustered out of the service, carrying with him a 
commission from the Governor of Missouri, and three from the Presi- 
dent of the United States : the first, that of Assistant Surgeon ; the 
second, that of full Surgeon, and the third, that of Lieutenant-Colonel 
by brevet. 



694 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

During the war, for a period of nine months he had charge of the 
United States Marine Hospital in St. Louis, and aside from this he 
always held the position of Medical Director while in the army, his 
appointment being that of General Staff' Surgeon, United States Vol- 
unteers. Upon his leaving the service he returned to St. Louis, and 
resumed his profession. 

Upon resuming his practice here, the Government, as a recog- 
nition of the valuable services he rendered in his professional capacity 
during the war, immediately appointed Dr. Porter, unsolicited on his 
part, an " Examiner of Pensions," which position he still holds, and is 
president of the Board ordered by the Government for that purpose. In 
1868 he was appointed medical examiner for the Mutual Life Insurance 
Company of New York, and its medical referee for six States and two 
Territories. He is also medical examiner for the Travelers' Life and 
Accident Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, also the Penn 
Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia. During Mayor Cole's 
term of office he was appointed a member of the Board of Health, and 
was instrumental in inaugurating many reforms in the sanitary con- 
dition of the city. 

Dr. Porter is now in the full vigor and strength of manhood, with all 
his faculties unimpaired. His whole life, nearly twenty-two years of 
which he has passed in the city, has been directed to the study and prac- 
tice of his profession, from which he now draws an annual income of 
about ten thousand dollars. His wife died Christmas day, 1872, leav- 
ing two children, boys. 

Dr. Porter is a man of great sagacity, quick perceptions, sound 
judgment, noble impulses and remarkable force and determination of 
character. Honorable in every relation of life, and of unblemished 
reputation, he commands the respect and confidence of all who know 
him. It is unnecessary to say that as a physician he is held in the 
highest estimation by his fellow-citizens. The record of his daily life 
is filled with evidences of this fact. As he has devoted his life to a 
noble profession, so is he now crowned with its choicest rewards. In 
all professions, but more especially the medical, there are exalted 
heights to which genius itself dares scarcely soar, and which can only 
be gained after long years of patient, arduous and unremitting toil, 
inffexible and unfaltering courage. To this proud eminence, we may 
safely say Dr. Porter has risen, and in this statement, we feel confident 
we will be sustained by the universal opinion of his professional breth- 
ren, the best standard of judgment in such cases. 



FIRMAN A. ROZIER. 



/ I \HE ancestors of Firman Andrew Rozier were among the earliest 
JL settlers of Southeastern Missouri, and belonged to that old class 
of pioneers who came to Missouri when it formed a portion of the 
French territory in America. His father, who had served in the French 
navy, came to America in 1808, and was the early friend and compan- 
ion of Audubon, the great naturalist, who also served in the same 
branch of the French service. They both settled in Philadelphia, 
afterward in Louisville, and finally came to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, 
and entered into general merchandising. Audubons' tastes were any- 
thing but commercial, and the time he should have spent in dealing 
sugar, coffee and tobacco to the inhabitants, was usually passed in 
shooting birds and exploring the mysteries of the feathery kingdom. 
The neglect of business for what appeared to the elder Rozier, who 
was an eminentl}^ practical man, mere pastime, resulted in Audubon 
selling out his commercial interest to his partner, who took the entire 
business, while the young naturalist followed the bent of his inclina- 
tions, and began the study of the birds of North America, which 
resulted in the publication of Audubon's Natural History, one of the 
most valuable works of the kind ever printed. 

The mother of the subject of the present sketch was Constance Roi, 
a native of Illinois. Her parents were among the first settlers of Fort 
Chartres. 

Firman Andrew Rozier was born July 31, 1826, the same year the 
State government was organized. His early education was conducted 
at the common schools of Ste. Genevieve and at the parental knee. At 
the age of twelve years, he was sent to Ste. Mary's, in Perry county, at 
that time the most flourishing institution of learning west of the Alle- 
ghanies, where he began the study of the classics and higher branches 
of mathematics. Among the distinguished scholars who filled profess- 
ors' chairs at that period in this college, were the late Bishop Timon, of 
Buffalo, New York ; Bishop Rosetti, first Roman Catholic Bishop of 
St. Louis ; Bishop Odin, present incumbent of the diocese of Galves- 



696 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ton, Texas, and many others whose names have since become cele- 
brated for piety and learning. 

At the age of sixteen he became clerk of the steamer Vandalia, 
running between St, Louis and New Orleans. 

In 1841 he embarked in a commercial enterprise in St. Louis, which, 
however, was discarded for the study of the law, which he began in 
the office of Bogy & Hunton. He subsequently completed his classical 
education at Beardstown, Kentucky, when he entered the Transyl- 
vania Law School, at Lexington, where he finished his legal course. 
Here Mr^ Rozier was brought in contact with such legal luminaries as 
Judge Marshall, Chief Justice Robinson, Judge Wooley, and many 
others who will live forever in the annals of litigation in Kentucky, aye 
even in the legal history of America. Here also he became acquainted 
and intimate with the famihes of Henry Clay, Crittenden, and other 
immortal statesmen whom Kentucky has given to the Union. Under 
such influence, and surrounded by such associations, did young Rozier 
pursue his legal studies and prepare himself for the Bar. Upon gradu- 
ating, he returned to St. Louis and began the practice of his profession. 

In 1846, Mr. Rozier was commissioned Captain of the Southern 
Missouri Guard, which was organized to accompany General Fremont 
to California. The severity of the weather prevented this compan}- 
from crossing the plains, and it was honorably disbanded at Fort 
Leavenworth. 

In 1850, he was a candidate for Congress, as a Benton Democrat, his 
opponents being John F. Darby and Judge James Bowlin. Mr. Darby 
was returned by a small majority. 

In 1854, he was elected a delegate to the Southwestern Convention 
at Memphis, over which John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, presided. 
Mr. Rozier made a report to the Convention, which had been called 
together to consider such measures as were calculated to advance the 
interests of the Mississippi Valley, upon the submerged lands of South- 
east Missouri. His report was accompanied by a topographical map of 
that section of the country, all of which was approved by the Conven- 
tion, and has been of much material benefit to the Southeast. 

He has been mayor of Ste. Genevieve, and president of the Branch 
of the Merchants' Bank at that place, and in 1856 was one of the 
founders of the Academy there. By his individual efibrts he upheld 
and sustained this institution of learning for some eight years, when it 
at last, with many others in the State, succumbed beneath the stern 
necessities of war. 



FIRMAN A. ROZIER. 697 

In 1856, he was elected to the State Legislature, and so efficiently did 
he discharge every duty in connection with this position, that he was 
returned for the Senate in 1872. He has always acted with the Demo- 
cratic party, and no better or more enthusiastic champion of party prin- 
ciples can be found in the State. 

Mr. Rozier is extensively connected with the mining interests of the 
south-eastern portion of the State, and is one of the principal stock-hold- 
ers in the Valley Lead and Zinc Mine. He is also engaged in coal 
mining in Illinois ; in fact, mining and education have for many years 
claimed much of his time. He was chairman of the Committee on Mines 
and Mineralogy, and introduced the bill to the General Assembly, 
authorizing the publication of the works of Pumpelly and Broadhead, 
State Geologists. 

He was married at Ste. Genevieve, in 1850, to Miss Mary Valle, 
in member of that old and respectable family whose members are so 
intimately mixed up with the history of St. Louis. 

Mr. Rozier is now almost the sole remnant of the old French settlers 
who took such a prominent part in early history of South-eastern Mis- 
souri. He still resides at Ste. Genevieve, where he dispenses his 
hospitality after the manner of his fathers, to a large circle of friends and 
admirers. His home, which was formerly the academy in which he 
took so much interest, is a magnificent property, beautified by all that 
a refined taste and wealth could suggest. His family consists of his wife 
and six children ; and here, after his labors in the Senate chamber or else- 
where, surrounded by the most ennobling of domestic influences, he is 
accustomed to recuperate his over-worked energies. Of good, sound 
legal abilities, of high social standing, Mr. Rozier rests secure in the 
hearts and good graces of his fellow-citizens of Missouri, for whose bene- 
fit he has given some of the best years of his life. 



B. F. EDWARDS, M. D. 



^IcJrOBABLY no finer specimen of the Old School of the Ameri- 
J- can gentleman exists at present in the Mississippi Valley, than the 
subject of this sketch ; not that he is to be placed among the 
relics of the past, although he has long ago fulfilled the three-score 
and ten years allotted to man ; nor because his sphere of useful- 
ness is well-nigh past, but because he is one of the few men now living 
who have seen the American Union, in all its different vicissitudes, grow 
from a mere handful of patriots, to be the proud and powerful nation it 
now is. His life is spread over almost eighty of the one hundred years 
of our national existence ; he has been cotemporary, and on friendly 
terms with many of the greatest men of his day, whose names are 
the pride and boast of the nation ; he has seen a galaxy of statesmen, 
warriors, orators and poets, fall one by one before the never-faltering 
hand of Time ; and still survives, one of the few representatives of the 
most noble and heroic era of American history. 

Dr. Edwards was born in Maryland in the year 1797. His father 
was a Virginian by birth ; he followed farming and merchandising 
combined, and was a man of superior attainments. He was a member 
of Congress during Washington's administration, and was in the Con- 
vention of Maryland that ratified the Federal Constitution. The family 
is a long-lived one, some of the members living into the eighties and 
nineties. 

His father removed to Beardstown, Kentucky, in the year 1800, 
where he still pursued farming and merchandising. The early educa- 
tion of young Benjamin was obtained at the Beardstown and other 
academies of Kentucky. He began the study of medicine in the 
year 1815, at Beardstown, and subsequently spent one year with Dr. 
Walkins, of Virginia, who was a relative : a man of very extensive 
practice and the trusted friend and physician of Thomas Jefferson, who 
remarked that he very seldom met his equal, and never his superior. 

In 1818 Dr. Edwards first came to St. Louis, and saw the city when 
it was comprised of a few hundred inferior buildings and log huts, which 



700 



BIOGRAPHICA'L SKETCHES. 



were anything but indicative of its future greatness. He remained, 
however, but a short time, when he removed to Chariton, which, even 
at that early period, was quite an extensive settlement. He traveled 
over the greater portion of the State, even to its western boundary, for 
his health and for recreation, an undertaking at that time fraught with 
many unseen dangers, on account of the murderous hostilities of the 
savage tribes of Indians which infested those regions. 

In 1819, he returned to Kentucky, and married Miss Eliza Green, 
daughter of the first couple ever married in the State, and whose father 
was the clerk of the second county formed under the State laws. He 
still lives, at an advanced age. This aged couple observed their golden 
wedding about five years ago. After his marriage, the Doctor returned 
to Missouri, and settled in that portion of the State which comprisesi the 
present county of Ray, at a point about twelve miles above Lexington. 
The Indians were very troublesome, and took every opportunity to 
murder any white settler who might be unfortunate enough to stray too 
far from the settlement. An attack was anticipated, and the settlers 
fortified themselves, and Dr. Edwards was chosen to command them. 
Although the savages advanced to within hearing distance of the fortifi- 
cation, yet they retired without making the intended attack. The 
Doctor again returned to Kentucky, where he remained until the death 
of his parents, which occurred in 1826. 

In 1827, he removed to Edwardsville, Illinois, where he practiced his 
profession until 1836, and where, for seven years, he was Receiver of 
Public Moneys under the Jackson administration. Practicing medicine 
was not quite as easy then as now, the practitioner often being obliged 
to ride a hundred miles on horseback in twenty-four hours, to fill the 
requirements of his profession. 

About this time he established the first Literary Seminary of the State 
of Illinois at Rock Springs, which flourished for many years afterward. 
Some years subsequent he was one of the originators of Shurtlefl' College 
at Alton. He was always the friend of learning, and ever stood ready 
to assist institutions of this kind. 

In 1836 heresigned the office of Receiver of Public Moneys, and 
removed to Alton, where he remained until 1845, during which time 
he filled a seat in the Common Council of the place. He then removed 
to St. Louis, and entered upon the practice of his profession, enjoying 
a lucrative practice until 1865, when he removed to Kirkwood, where 
lie still resides, passing the close of a long eventful career in peace and 
plenty. For some years past, the Doctor has been upon the retired 



B. F. EDWARDS, M.D. 70I 

list of physicians, except among a few old and honorable friends, who 
still claim his services — his physical powers being insufficient to fill 
the requirements of any number of patients, although, wonderful as 
it may appear, his mental faculties are as vigorous as they were twenty 
years ago. 

Although the Doctor has been a close observer of the political state 
of the country for over half a century, yet he has never been a searcher 
after public office, preferring to give his whole time and attention to a 
profession to which he has always been devotedly attached. For a man 
who has arrived at his extreme age, his physique is in a remarkable 
state of preservation, his ruddy complexion and powerful frame giving 
undoubted evidence of many years yet. With a highly-cultivated mind, 
welf stored with the most interesting historical reminiscences of the 
early days of the West and Missouri, and with a wonderfully retentive 
memor}^ Dr. Edwards, with his genial nature and admirable qualities 
of sociability, is one of the most enjoyable men of the day, whose 
society is much sought after, and whose friendship is well worthy of 
being possessed. An honorable man in all his business transactions, 
with a purity of life worthy of imitation, he is the fortunate possessor of 
the esteem and high regard of all who know him. 



WEBSTER M. SAMUEL. 



WEBSTER M. SAMUEL, although, comparatively speaking, 
quite a young man, has earned for himself a place in the front 
ranks of the merchants of St. Louis. He was born in Clay 
county, Missouri, March 7, 1834. ^^^ father, Edward M. Samuel, 
was a native of Kentucky; his mother was a Virginian. The father 
came to Missouri about the year 1829, and took up his residence in Clay 
county. For many years he occupied a prominent position in this sec- 
tion of the State as a leading merchant, and was president of the branch 
of the Farmers' Bank, established in that county during its existence. 
In 1865 he removed to St. Louis and engaged in commercial pursuits. 
He soon took his proper position among the leading mercantile spirits of 
the city, and was the founder of the Commercial Bank, one of the most 
substantial concerns of St. Louis during its day ; and was the president 
of the organization from its foundation to its death. 

Webster, the subject of this short sketch, better known in mercantile 
circles and on 'Change as Web. M. Samuel, received a very liberal 
education at Center College, Danville, Kentucky. 

In 1857, he moved to St. Louis, and established the house of Samuel 
& Allen, which remained in existence until 1861, the breaking out of 
the late rebellion. During the war, Mr. Samuel does not appear to 
have been engaged in any active mercantile life, but upon its close, in 
1865, we find him in the firm of E. M. Samuel & Sons, since which 
period his business career has been successful and uninterrupted. 

In 187 1, he was elected a director of the Merchants' Union Ex- 
change; in 1873, was chosen its vice-president, and in 1874, was 
honored by being elected president, the highest compliment his brother 
merchants could confer on his business integrity and capacity. And in 
this connection it might be remarked, that no more fitting or compli- 
mentary mention of Mr. Samuel could be made, attesting at once his 
popularity as a man, and the high estimation in which he is held as a 
merchant, than a presentation of the simple fact of his being selected 
as the chief executive officer of one of the most discerning and saga- 
cious bodies of men in America. 



704 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

During his mercantile career in St. Louis, Mr. Samuel has been in 
various capacities connected with some of the most important enter- 
prises of the city. He has been a director in the Commercial Bank 
since 1869, and president of the Phoenix Insurance Company since 
1872, besides other organizations where his sound business sense and 
good judgment were in demand. 

Yet in the full flush and prime of vigorous manhood, with a 
physique that does honor to his Kentucky and Virginia ancestors, with 
suave and affable manners, and an enterprising disposition, the chief 
city of his native State has much to hope for in the achievements of his 
riper years. 

Quiet, unassuming and undemonstrative in the daily routine of his 
life, he receives the honors his fellows confer upon him in a manner as 
to make them doubly merited. In social life he is much beloved by a 
large circle of intimate friends, who have an opportunity of knowing 
and are capable of appreciating the sterling qualities of head and heart 
of the man who, if it is possible, is more admired at his own fireside, 
and beneath his own vine and fig tree, than upon the busy streets of 
mercantile St. Louis. 



COL. GEORGE KNAPP. 



IN the Western world of newspaperdom, no man holds a higher, or 
has carved out for himself a more enviable position, than Colonel 
George Knapp, of the St. Louis Republican . That a man should 
feel a commendable pride in being at the head of the leading newspaper 
of the Southwest, — a journal, venerable in its years and mighty in its 
influences, and read in the great political and commercial centres of 
America and Europe, is but natural, especially when he is indebted to 
his own industry and energy for this proud position. But the favors of 
fortune have not spoiled Mr. Knapp, or made him insensible to the 
demands of others who, in the race of life, have not been quite so 
fortunate as himself. 

Colonel Knapp was born in Montgomery, Orange county. New 
York, September 25, 1814, and in 1820, accompanied his parents to 
St. Louis. At the early age of twelve, he entered as an apprentice 
in the office of the Republican^ then owned by Messrs. Charless and 
Paschall, men still remembered by the older citizens of St. Louis for 
their business energy and integrity. In 1834, ^^ reached the age of 
twenty years, was at the head of his business, and by his many sterling 
qualities, had secured the respect and confidence of a large circle of 
acquaintances. He still continued his connection with the Republican, 
and two years after, in 1836, became part proprietor of the book and 
jobbing department, and in 1837 became one of the proprietors of the 
journal itself, in connection with Messrs. Chambers and Harris, and has 
been one of the proprietors of that paper from that date to the present 
day. Entering the office in the humble capacity of an apprentice, he 
has by his own sterling merits carved his way to one of the proudest 
positions in Western journalism. 

In 1835, Colonel Knapp took a prominent part in the volunteer mili- 
tary service, and when the endre Union rang with the intelligence that 
the troops of the United States and those of Mexico were in conflict, he 
was among the first to don his regimentals and offer his services to the 
Government. In 1846, he went to Mexico as a Lieutenant in the St. 
Louis Grays, of the St. Louis Legion. After the return of the regi- 



7o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ment to St. Louis he became Captain, and subsequently Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the First Battalion of the St. Louis Legion. His old 
companions in arms speak of him in the highest terms as an officer 
and a soldier. 

In addition to his connection with the Republicans Colonel Knapp 
has always been a zealous advocate of all public-spirited enterprises, 
and many of the most magnificent public buildings which now orna- 
ment the city, are, in a great measure, indebted to his personal energy 
for their erection, and the zealous part he took in soliciting subscriptions 
for them, and contributing with his means. In him, the bridge and the 
different railroad enterprises have found a staunch friend, and to his 
public and private influence, many of them in part owe their success 
as corporations. By his industry and business qualifications he has 
amassed a large fortune ; yet no man is more keenly alive to the mis- 
fortunes of his fellow-beings, and the worthy never turn from his door 
without assistance. Warm-hearted, generous to a fault, and eminently 
social, he occupies a no less high position in private than public life, 
and numbers his friends b}^ the thousands. 

In December 1840, Colonel Knapp was married to Miss Eleanor 
McCartan, daughter of the late Thomas McCartan, of St. Louis. He 
has passed some of his time of late years in foreign travel, taking his 
family in 1867 and 1870 to the principal points of interest in Europe. 
Being a man of fine perceptive faculties, his mind is richly stored with 
information of the laws, customs and manners of foreign countries, 
which makes him a most pleasurable companion. 

Of a very retiring disposition. Colonel Knapp is more ready at all 
times to advance the merits of others than his own, and always ready 
to push forward any enterprise that will foster the commercial interests 
of St. Louis, or develop- the material wealth of Missouri. 

Although well advanced in the summer of his existence. Colonel 
Knapp still possesses much of the fire and vigor of his earlier man- 
hood, and is still capable of accomplishing great things for his adopted 
city. Having spent his earlier years in the paths of honorable industry, 
he now, in the sunset of life, reaps that reward which is ever within the 
grasp of honesty, energy and integrity : the entire confidence, esteem 
and regard of his fellow-citizens, who have witnessed his useful career 
for over half a century in St. Louis. 



WILLIAM T. HARRIS.. 



IT may be safely stated that no man in the Western country stands 
more prominently before the public in connection with the public 
school system and the education of youth, than William T. 
Harris, Superintendent of Public Instruction in St. Louis. The view 
that we have endeavored to give to the world at large, of the leading 
men of St. Louis and Missouri in this volume, would, indeed, be incom- 
plete, did we fail to notice the life and labors of a man to whose talents 
and energies the entire community is indebted for the almost complete 
and magnificently admirable system of public school education which 
to-day blesses the city of St. Louis. We have written of the statesman, 
and soldier, and orator, and the leader of commerce and industry, yet it 
is a duty yet undischarged that we devote some space to him whose 
importance is second to none, and in its beneficent results will be felt 
during the long years to come, when those now holding proud places 
and high positions shall have passed away — the teacher of youth. 

William Torrey Harris was born in Killingly, Connecticut, Sep- 
tember lo, 1835. His forefathers on his father's side came from the 
West of England to America with Roger Williams, and settled in 
Rhode Island. His father was a farmer, and the famil}^ consisted of 
the parents and nine children, of which WilHam is the eldest. Up to 
his ninth year he received such instruction as was dispensed in the old 
red school houses of New England. The succeeding two years he 
passed at the district schools of the city of Providence, Rhode Island. 
Then again he attended country schools, going occasional quarters to 
the academies of Connecticut and Massachusetts, until prepared for 
college. In 1854, ^^ entered Yale College, having previously taught 
school. This was in his eighteenth year. He left Yale at the close of 
the term of 1857 to come West ; in August of that year arrived in 
St. Louis, and in the spring of 1858, his connection with the public 
schools began, when he accepted the position of assistant teacher in 
the Franklin school. Two years afterward he was appointed principal 
of the Clay school, the first new graded school in the city. In this 



yo8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

capacity he remained for eight years, giving the utmost satisfaction to 
the Board of School Directors, as well as the public, who were inter- 
ested in this particular school. In 1867, he was appointed Assistant 
Superintendent of Public Schools, and a little over a year afterward 
was made Superintendent, which important and honorable position he 
has filled ever since. 

Upon assuming the grave responsibilities of his office, Mr. Harris 
immediately commenced a series of reforms and improvements in the 
system of education as taught in the public schools, which have been 
productive of the most beneficial results, and which have commanded 
the admiration and challenged the criticisms of the most renowned pro- 
fessors of the East. While he was yet Assistant Superintendent, he 
introduced the system of phonetic instruction in primary grades. This 
is an improved system of learning how to read. It was gotten up by 
Dr. Lee, and first put into successful operation by Mr. Harris, and 
has been adopted by the Boston and other public schools. 

The present method of teaching German is also an introduction of 
Mr. Harris. Instead of having the German element collected in one 
school, as is the case in Cincinnati, it is distributed over the diflerent 
schools of the city, and sufficiently taught to enable the pupil to write to 
his parents or guardian in that language. This has tended to remove 
all elements of caste and nativism. This system, which works so 
admirably and harmoniously in St. Louis, now obtains generally 
throughout the West. Mr. Harris has also pointed out a method of 
classification and grading which tends to make the schools more elastic 
and mobile, and to remove the cast-iron character of the old schools. 
Under this system, the slow pupils are not unnecessarily hastened for- 
ward, nor yet are the sharp and adept pupils retarded or kept behind. 
Tardiness has decreased, and corporal punishment is now almost un- 
known, not averaging two cases a week in a school of seven hundred 
pupils. 

The introduction of the study of the natural sciences into our schools 
is another marked feature of Mr. Harris' administration. The best 
proof of its results is that it has been adopted largely throughout the 
country. It is so arranged as not to interfere with the other branches, 
by having but one lesson a week of one hour's length, and so adapting 
the course as to give to each pupil that goes through the schools three 
complete courses of instruction in the natural science ; including its 
grand divisions, the plants, the animals and physics, and so graded that 
the lessons of the beginner are very elementary, and teach chiefly of 



W, T. HARRIS. 709 

the child's playthings and natural objects familiar to him, and subse- 
quent courses proving more scientific. The reformation of the entire 
organization of our public schools as produced by Mr. Harris, as far as 
supervision is concerned, is so complete as to make the principals far 
more responsible than formerly : something which experience teaches us 
has worked admirably, and is productive of the most beneficial results. 

Thus far we have spoken of Mr. Harris as a teacher and a director 
of education, in which light he has no superior in the West ; and now 
we come to regard him in the light of the head of that noteworthy school 
of speculative philosophy which, under his guidance, has sprung up in 
St. Louis, and which has attracted the attention of every deep thinker 
of the age, not of America alone, but of the old world. 

Mr. Harris, during his stay at Yale, in 1856, met the venerable Alcott, 
of Concord, and was much stimulated by various conversations with 
him. At that time, he had studied Kant a little, and was beginning 
to think upon Goethe. The hints given him by Mr. Alcott were valua- 
ble, and when he came to St. Louis, and came in contact with other men 
of culture and originality, his desire for philosophical study was greatly 
increased and strengthened. The first year of his residence here, he 
studied " Kant's Critique of Pure Reason," without, as he says, under- 
standing it at all. He had been solicited and encouraged to these studies 
by Henry C. Brockmeyer, a remarkable and brilliant German, and so 
enthusiastic for Kantian study, that he awoke a genuine fervor in Mr. 
Harris. They arranged a Kant class, which Mr. Alcott on one occasion 
visited, and in a short time the love for philosophical study became 
almost fanaticism. A number of highly-cultured Germans and Ameri- 
cans composed the circje, whose members had a supreme contempt for the 
needs of the flesh, and who, after long days of laborious and exhaustive 
teaching, would spend the night hours in threading the mysteries of Kant. 
Mr. Harris claims that in 1858 they mastered Kant, and between that 
period and 1863 they analyzed, or, as he phrases it, obtained the keys 
to Leibnitz and Spinoza. The result of this long study is written out 
in what Mr. Harris calls his " Introduction to Philosophy," in which he 
deals with "Speculative Insights." Everyone, he claims, will have the 
same insight into Kant, Leibnitz and Spinoza as he did, by reading his 
" Introduction." He has a large number of followers, many of whom 
apply his theories according to his confession, better than he does him- 
self ; and his "Journal of Speculative Philosophy , started boldl}^ in the 
face of many obstacles, has won a permanent establishment and gratify- 
ing success. 



7IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mr. Harris wrote a "Critique upon Herbert Spencer's First Principles," 
which was offered to the North American Review^ but the editors failed 
to discover anything in it, save that it was very audacious, and returned 
it to the author. Mr. Harris, thereupon, valiantly started his own jour- 
nal in April of 1867. The publication is gaining ground in this country, 
and has now a very wide and hearty recognition in Germany and among 
thinking men throughout Europe. 

Mr. Harris was married in 1858, to Miss Sarah S. Bugbee, of Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, a lady in every particular qualified to be the wife 
and helpmeet of a man of the same studious and philosophical turn of 
mind as he is, and by whom he has two children living. 

The subject of education has claimed, and in fact still claims, the 
best years of his manhood, and it is no fulsome praise to state that, as 
an educator of the young, he has but few equals, and certainly no 
superior in the West ; and such is his high standing in this particular, 
truly honorable and useful path of life, that he was honored with the 
presidency of the last National Teachers' Association, which convened 
in Detroit, Michigan, in 1875. 

As a deep thinker and a philosopher, he holds a proud pre-eminence 
among the master minds of his country. His contributions to the 
science and literature of the day are invaluable, and will live long after 
the labors of the more ephemeral workers of the age shall have been 
forgotten. Still young in years, his work in life may be said to have 
just begun. With a mind well trained by deep study, and capable of 
grasping and mastering the most abstruse questions of ancient or modern 
philosophy, his fellow-citizens naturally look for bright things from him 
in the future. 



ANDREAA^ MAXWELL. 



NDREW MAXWELL, who is connected with the well-known 
firm of Maxwell, Scaling & Mullhall, was born in the county 
Tyrone, Ireland, December 26, 1820. His father was a farmer, 
but died while the subject of this sketch was still an infant. Andrew 
received such scholastic instruction as the county schools and his 
widowed mother's crippled finances permitted. When he was but 
sixteen years old, the famil}^, consisting of himself, his mother and a 
brother, came to America, and settled in Washington county, Maryland. 
Young Andrew immediately succeeded in securing a clerkship with his 
uncle, James Watson, a contractor on the works of the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad, then in course of construction, and also on the Chesa- 
peake and Ohio Canal. The family subsequently removed to Little 
Georgetown, Virginia. 

In 1840, Mr. Maxwell, having accumulated some little means, moved 
to Grand Gulf, Mississippi, and opened a general store in connection 
with his uncle Watson, which he conducted until 1845, and then, having 
lost all his means in the business, went to Alexandria, Missouri, and 
engaged as a clerk with Mr. James S. Henning at twenty-five dollars 
per annum. Mr. Henning, appreciating his industry and faithfulness 
to his duties, gave him an interest in a very profitable business. At the 
death of Mr. Henning, which occurred in 1849, Mr. Maxwell, as sur- 
viving partner, administered upon his estates and found no difficulty in 
finding friends to go on his bond for sixty thousand dollars. 

The business which then passed through his hands — merchandising 
and pork packing — was very profitable, and was continued by him up 
to 1863. 

From 1850 to 1856, he was treasurer of Clark county, Missouri, and 
in i860, was judge of the county court. 

While conducting operations in Clark county, he had staunch and 
firm friends in St. Louis, who assisted him in bearing the load. xAmong 
those might be mentioned Henning & Woodruff', E. C. Sloan, John 
J. Roe and Cole Brothers. 



712 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1865, he opened the pork packing business in St. Louis, under the 
name of Maxwell & Patterson, which business was conducted up to 
1870, and through a series of losses, proved very disastrous. Though 
the firm came through with honor, they had lost almost everything. 

It was in 1870 that Mr. Samuel Scahng and Mr. Joseph Mulhall, able 
and enterprising stock men, with abundant capital, combined with 
Mr. Maxwell to start the present house, which is one of the most exten- 
sive and successful enterprises in the West. 

Mr. Maxwell was married in 1847 to Miss Martha Ann Williams, of 
Alexandria, Missouri. His family consists of seven children. One of 
his sons, C. Maxwell, graduated with honors in the class of 1875 ^^ 
Yale College. He is a young man of much ability, and promises well 
for the future. 

During his residence in St. Louis, Mr. Maxwell has exhibited a 
marked and lively interest in all matters of a public nature, and has 
been in various capacities connected with several public enterprises. 
He was a director of the Corn Exchange Bank, also a director in the 
DeSoto and Excelsior Insurance Companies, and has had more or less 
to do with other corporations of importance to the State and city. He 
is at present, and has been for a number of years past, a trustee and 
steward of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In politics he has 
always been a Democrat, but has never allowed his political enthusiasm, 
although repeatedly solicited by his fellow-citizens, to carry him beyond 
the mere fact of exercising the elective franchise. 

The twenty-eight years of experience which Mr. Maxwell possessed, 
and his well-known character for the scrupulous fulfillment of all 
obligations, unwritten as well as written, conspired to keep him at the 
head of a house of a magnitude commensurate with his abilities. His 
scrupulous fidelity in all the relations of life, and the unswerving honor 
with which he has stood by his friends, give him an enviable position 
in commercial circles, as well as private life. 



EDWARD C. FRANKLIN, M.D. 



ONE of the most distinguished adepts of the progressive school 
of Homoeopathy in the West, is Dr. Edward C. Franklin, 
of this city, a man whose labors in the paths first mapped out 
by the immortal Hahnemann, entitle him to a front rank among the 
physicians of Missouri. 

Dr. Franklin was born in Flushing, Long Island, March 12, 1822. 
His father, Joseph L. Franklin, was a native of New York, tracing his 
lineal descent through the family of Benjamin Franklin. His mother, 
whose maiden-name was Fitch, was the grand-daughter of Eliphalet 
Fitch, who, under the Crown of England, held the appointment of 
receiver-general of the Island of Jamaica. 

He was educated primarily at the district school in the township of 
Flushing, where he acquired the rudiments of an English education ; 
was fitted for college at the school of the Rev. Eli Wheeler, at Little 
Neck, Long Island, and entered Washington College, Hartford, Con- 
necticut, in 1837. I^ ^^^^ third year of his collegiate course, a severe 
attack of illness compelled him to desist from study, and laid him aside 
for a year and a half. 

In 1842, Dr. Franklin entered the medical department of the Univer- 
sity of New York, as a private pupil of the illustrious Dr. Valentine 
Mott, and graduated in 1846. He commenced the practice of allo- 
pathy in Williamsburg, Long Island, the same year, and soon became 
the principal in a somewhat protracted medical controversy with 
Dr. Cox, a celebrated homoeopathic physician of that place. This 
controversy elicited a severe cross-fire from Drs. Hanford and Culbert, 
two of his class-mates in the University, who had become converts to 
homoeopathy, and were residing in Williamsburg. 

In 1849, Dr. Franklin removed to California, and engaged in practice 
in San Francisco, where, in a few months, he amassed considerable 
money. He received the appointment of deputy health officer of the 
State of California, in 1851, and was placed in charge of the Marine 
Hospital in San Francisco. He remained in the office, on a salary of 



714 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

nine hundred dollars per month, with perquisites, until the institution 
was dissolved and finally abandoned by the State. He then went to the 
Isthmus of Panama, where he received the appointment, for a time, of 
physician to the Panama Railroad Hospital. He spent three years of 
successful practice in this place, and accumulated considerable property, 
but was compelled to leave on account of failing health, induced bv 
successive attacks of Panama fever. This fever stubbornly resisted 
the treatment of allopathy, but yielded promptly to the homoeopathic 
treatment. It was this experience that first enlightened him as to the 
real value of the new system, and led him early to its adoption. He 
first commenced its practice in Dubuque, Iowa, and after three years of 
residence there, settled in St. Louis. 

In i860. Dr. Franklin was appointed demonstrator of Anatomy in the 
HomcEopathic Medical College of Missouri, and also supplied a vacancy 
existing in the department of Obstetrics. These positions he filled with 
honor to himself until his appointment to the chair of Surgery in the 
same institution. In this year he engaged in an able discussion in the 
St. Louis papers, with Professor M. L. Linton, of the St. Louis Medi- 
cal College — an allopathic institution. The discussion, entitled "Medical 
Science and Common Sense," continued two months, creating a deep 
interest in the adherents of the opposing schools, and yielding a large 
amount of valuable instruction to the unprofessional reader. 

In 1861, he was appointed Surgeon to the Fifth regiment of Missouri 
volunteers, called out by the proclamation of the President. Before the 
•close of this service he was appointed by General Nathaniel Lyon, 
commanding, Surgeon-in-Chief of the first regularly organized military 
hospital west of the Mississippi River. After the battle of "Wilson's 
Creek" in 1861, which resulted in the death of General Lyon, he was 
placed in charge of all the sick and wounded of that campaign. It was 
here he performed the last sad offices to the remains of his lamented 
chief, depositing them in a rude tomb upon the farm of Hon. J. S. 
Phelps, preparatory to their removal to his native State. 

In the fall of this year, he passed his examination before the Arm}' 
Medical Board at Washington, and, receiving the appointment of 
Brigade Surgeon of volunteers, was assigned to the Department of the 
West, where he organized the United States General Hospital, at 
Mound City, Illinois, the records of which showed a smaller per cent- 
age of deaths than any other general or field hospital during the war. 
After fifteen months of service here, he was ordered to the command of 
Major-General F. P. Blair, where he served as operative and consulting 



EDWARD C. FRANLIN, M . D . 715 

surgeon, in field and hospital, in the memorable campaigns of "Chicka- 
saw Bayou," "Arkansas Post," and the series of battles around Vicks- 
burg, which culminated in the overthrow of that stronghold. 

In 1862, he was appointed professor of Surgery in the Hahnemann 
Medical College of Chicago, and in 1867 was honored with a call 
from over thirty of the most prominent homoeopathic physicians in New 
York, to reside in that city and practice surgery. Both these calls he 
was constrained to decline, because of his determination to attain to the 
front rank in his professsion in the home of his adoption. Both appoint- 
ments — especially the latter — were highly complimentary as they were 
honorable to the gentlemen who made them. During this year he pub- 
lished a treatise, entitled, " The Science and Art of Surgery," which 
has been accepted as a text-book by all the homceopathic colleges in the 
United States. 

In 1871, he was appointed surgeon to the Good Samaritan Hospital; 
and in the re-organization of the Homoeopathic College of Missouri, in 
1872, was re-appointed to the chair of Surgery, which he still retains. 

In 1874, he was invited to deliver the address before the Kansas State 
Homceopathic Medical Society, and while at its session introduced the 
resolution to esttiblish a " Western Academy of Homoeopathy," which 
should embrace the talent, culture and zeal of Western homoeopaths. 
This medical body met in St. Louis in October of the same year, 
organized for action, and promises to take high rank among the medical 
bodies of the land. He was elected to deliver the first public address 
of this society in October 1875, which will outline its purposes, aims 
and action in the great world of medical thought and progressive move- 
ment. 

The present year he was elected vice-president of the "American 
Institute of Homoeopathy," at its late meeting at Put-in-Bay, and has 
been honored for several years with the appointment of chairman of its 
Surgical Bureau. 

Dr. Franklin is a man beyond the average of intellectual power, and 
of skill in his department. Thoughtful, but quick of discernment, and 
prompt in action, he has been particularly successful in his practice. 
He has performed, during the late war of the rebellion, the remarkable 
achievement of thirteen amputations before breakfast. This is sur- 
passed only by a similar feat of the celebrated Baron Larrey, who is 
said to have performed eighteen amputations on a like occasion. 

In 1865 Dr. Franklin was married to Miss Josephine F. McSherry, 
daughter of Hon. P. T. McSherry, a prominent politician and business 



7l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

man of St. Louis. One child is the fruit of this union. His children 
by a former marriage are nearly all grown, the youngest being thirteen 
years old. 

Dr. Franklin has inherited a good physical organization, having a 
sanguine, nervous, bilious temperament, with sufficient of the phleg- 
matic to nicely touch his mental organization with the studious mold. 
He is genial and agreeable, and a gentleman of the highest social 
standing. 



FREDERICK HILL, M. D. 



hAr. FREDERICK HILL has long been regarded as one of the 
-Ly most enterprising and valuable citizens of St. Louis county. His 
name is a synonym for honesty and fair dealing, and his word is 
as good as a bond wherever he is known. 

Dr. Hill was born in Berlin, Prussia, February 5, 1818. His parents 
were highly respectable, and possessed of ample means. His father 
was a government official, holding the responsible position of superin- 
tendent of pensions, for a district in the kingdom. 

The son was placed at school in the gymnasiums, where he acquired a 
knowledge of elementary branches, and afterward received a thorough 
military education, and had some practical experience of the duties of a 
soldier. 

He conceived a liking for the medical profession, and was placed 
under the best instructors, receiving in due course the degree of M.D. 
After practicing medicine nine months in his native city, he was induced 
by a friend — Dr. Fredericks — to try his fortune in America. In com- 
pany with this friend, he left Berlin in October 1847, and early in 1848 
landed in New Orleans, where, shortly afterward, they opened an office 
and commenced the practice of medicine. The climate of New Or- 
leans, however, did not suit Dr. Hill, and after a residence there of one 
year, he determined to go farther north. 

He took steamer up the river for St. Louis in the fall of 1849, ^^^ 
when approaching that portion of the city formerly known as Caron- 
delet, he was well pleased with its appearance, and determined to visit 
it with a view to making it his future home. After looking about 
St. Louis a short time. Dr. Hill went down to Carondelet, and was so 
well satisfied with its location, inhabitants, and surroundings, that he 
concluded to settle there permanently. His available assets at that time 
amounted to eight hundred dollars. Not much it is true, but enough, 
with prudent management, to make a start in life. 

Dr. Hill opened an office, and in a short time obtained a good 
practice. He was affable and kind to all, ready to go wherever his 



7l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

services were needed, and generally effected cures. From the begin- 
ning of his residence in Carondelet he was an ardent friend of the 
place, and determined to do all in his power to build it up, and, if 
possible, make it a manufacturing point. He let no opportunity slip to 
speak a good word in praise of his town (for it was then a separate 
corporation) and to induce capitalists and enterprising mechanics to 
settle there. To show his faith in the future of Carondelet, Dr. Hill 
invested every dollar he earned in real estate and companies which 
were organized for manufacturing purposes. His attention from year 
to year became more engrossed with the interests of the place, and with 
his real estate operations, so that in 1856 he was obliged to relinquish 
the practice of medicine. The same year he was elected to the State 
Legislature, and served two terms, procuring much needed legislation 
for his own constituents, and doing faithful service for the State. At 
the close of his legislative career. Dr. Hill was elected to the City 
Council of Carondelet, and served as a member for a period of fifteen 
years. During this time he was instrumental in procuring the passage 
of ordinances for the opening of new streets, regulating grades, building 
sewers, and making various improvements, all of which aided in the 
growth and importance of the place. 

Dr. Hill was a director for many years, and a large stockholder, in 
the Iron Mountain Railroad ; was a stockholder in the Missouri Pacific 
Railroad ; for several years was president of the Waterloo and Caron- 
delet Turnpike Company ; was a stockholder, and for six ^^ears presi- 
dent of the German Insurance Company, but was compelled to resign 
this office on account of private interests. He has done much to 
promote the growth of the iron interests, and aided in establishing the 
Vulcan Iron Works, in which he is a stockholder. He built the South 
St. Louis Gas Works, and is one of the principal stockholders. In 
short, it is difficult to mention any enterprise for the benefit of his 
locality, in which Dr. Hill is not interested. Though not a reckless 
man in his speculations, he is ready to invest his money or spend his 
time in doing anything that will build up his end of the great city, and 
make business lively. 

Dr. Hill was married in 185 1 to Mrs. Baum. He has a pleasant 
home, and is surrounded with all that any one could desire to make life 
happy. Several 3^ears ago, when the cholera raged so fearfully in 
St. Louis, a brother-in-law died, leaving a family of eight children. 
Dr. Hill adopted five of them, and has reared and educated them with 
as much care as if they were his own. This is but an example of the 



FREDERICK HILL, M.D. 719 

man}^ generous deeds he has performed through life, and each day 
marks some new act of kindness and benevolence. With the exception 
of a visit to his parents in Europe in 1856, and a trip to California in 
1870, his life, since his first arrival in this State, has been spent in and 
around St. Louis. He is too busy to spend his summers in recreation 
abroad, although his means would justify it. He is the life and soul of 
many enterprises, and, it is hoped, will long be spared to aid in building 
up a city he loves so well, and to enjoy the confidence and esteem of 
his fellow-citizens. 



JAMES O. BROADHEAD. 



qJjvEW names are better known to the people of St. Louis, and 
J- throughout the State of Missouri, than that of James Overton 
Broadhead. He was born in Charlotteville, Albemarle county, 
Virginia, on the 29th of May, A. D. 1819. 

Mental and moral qualities, as well as physical characteristics, are so 
constantly inherited, that, to estimate justly tue character of any one, 
it is necessary to know something of his parentage. Mr. Broadhead 
sprung from that class from which have come so many of our most use- 
ful, and not a few of our great men — the upper grade of country people. 
His parents were both Virginians. His father, Achilles Broadhead, 
was a native of Albemarle county, where he lived until he removed to 
St. Charles county, Missouri. He was a farmer, for many years County 
Surveyor, and in the war of 181 2, a soldier with the rank of Captain. 
A plain, earnest, just man, full of common sense ; he was a christian 
gentleman, faithful in all the relations of life. He was made Ruling 
Elder of the Presbyterian church, and was chosen Judge of the County 
Court. Whether in private or public life all men trusted him. Those 
who know the son can well understand that the father was such a man. 

His mother's maiden name was Mar}^ Winston Carr. She was of 
Scottish origin, her ancestors occupied large estates in Virginia, where 
they settled after emigrating from Scotland. The family consisted of 
five children, of whom two were girls, and three boys — one of whom 
is the distinguished geologist. Garland C. Broadhead. James, the sub- 
ject of this sketch, was the oldest son. His maternal uncle, Dr. Frank 
Carr, a highly-educated gentleman, taught him in his classical school at 
Red Hills, Virginia, giving him thorough instruction in English and the 
classics, and he remained under his care until, at sixteen years of age, 
in the autumn of 1835, he entered the University of Virginia. Here he 
spent a year in diligent study, supporting himself wholly by his own 
efforts . 

At the close of this year he was engaged as teacher of a private 
school near Baltimore. In the meantime his father had removed from 



722 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

Virginia to what was then considered the Far West, and had estab- 
lished himself on a farm in St. Charles county, Missouri. Called to 
this new home by the illness of his mother, James closed his school 
and turned his face westward, reaching St. Louis in June 1837, a year 
memorable in the financial history of the country. 

Not long before, the Hon. Edward Bates, so eminent then and since 
as a lawyer, and so highly distinguished for his many virtues, his great 
ability and his services as a statesman, moved to the same neighborhood, 
and young Broadhead was employed as a tutor for his children. The 
gentlemanly bearing, correct deportment and excellent attainments of 
the young teacher, secured the friendship and confidence of his 
employer, and of all others with whom he was associated ; and while 
instructing his pupils, he himself was the pupil, as a student of law, 
of the Hon. Edward Bates. He was singularly fortunate in becom- 
ing a member of a family so remarkable for refinement, cultivation, 
and all Christian graces — no less than in being subject to the influ- 
ence and the guidance of so eminent an instructor. 

The three years, from 1838 to 1841, thus spent, were golden 3'ears to 
the young student, full of earnest study, and of careful training, and 
a faithful use of the rare advantages thus ofiered him. 

In 1842, Mr. Broadhead w^as licensed to practice law, by Judge Ezra 
Hunt, of Bowling Green, Missouri ; and selecting that place as his 
home, he there commenced the practice of his profession. Diligent 
study had so thoroughly prepared him for the practice, and his mind 
was so well trained, and so stored with useful knowledge ; his habits of 
reading and observation were so fixed, and he had so profited by 
social intercourse with the cultivated and refined, that he was unusually 
well prepared for active life ; and he entered at once upon a large and 
lucrative practice. The circuit in which he practiced embraced the 
counties of St. Charles, Lincoln, Pike, Ralls, Montgomery and Warren, 
and the bar was composed of eminent men, and a successful struggle 
for a place among them by a youth just licensed, required abilities and 
attainments of unusual merit and grasp. 

His popularity and the general estimate of his ability were shown by 

his election as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1845, from 

the Second Senatorial district. 

Again in 1847, he was elected a member of the Legislature from 

Pike county, — running as a Whig against Nicholas P. Minor, a popular 

and influential Democrat, and securing his election after an exciting 

contest, against a decided Democratic majority. 



JAMES O. BROADHEAD. 723 

Again in 1850, he was chosen to represent his district in the State 
Senate, after a canvass of great warmth. The great abihty — in debate 
and otherwise — he displayed in these struggles, strengthened his hold 
upon the people. 

In all these positions, he took at once a prominent and influential 
place, adding constantly to his own reputation and popularity, and 
proving, by efficient service, the wisdom of the popular choice. 

Whilst living in Pike county, he married a most estimable lady, and 
has a large family. 

In 1859, seeking a larger field, Mr. Broadhead moved to St. Louis, 
where, soon after, he formed a co-partnership with Fidelio C. 
Sharp, Esq., in the practice of law, which continues to the present 
time. 

On the nth of January, 1861, and in the midst of the excitement 
preceding the war, the first of a series of meetings of unconditional 
Union men was held at Washington Hall, in St. Louis, and at this and 
other meetings held for the purpose of consolidating the Union senti- 
ment, concocting measures for the preservation of the Union, Mr. 
Broadhead was conspicuous and influential, acting in conjunction with 
the Hon. Francis P. Blair and others, who were determined, at all 
hazards, that Missouri should not be swept into the secession move- 
ment, and that force should be met with force, if needful. 

About the first of February, A. D. 1861, it was determined at a 
secret meeting held in St. Louis, that a military organization should be 
formed for the protection of Union men, and to resist any attempt to 
carry the State into the secession movement, and, to co-operate with this 
organization, that a committee of safety should be formed, to whom 
should be confided the guidance of all movements in the interest of the 
Union. At the suggestion of the Hon. Francis P. Blair, Mr. Broadhead 
was one of the five persons selected to compose this committee. During 
those days, no one was more vigilant, earnest and efficient in protecting 
the interests committed to him ; and with his associates, and conspicuous 
among them, he displayed a zeal, gallantry, skillful leadership, pru- 
dence, foresight and wisdom, without which the Union cause in 
Missouri must have suffered great reverses. The chairman of this 
committee was the Hon. O. D. Filley, then mayor of St. Louis, and 
Mr. Broadhead was its secretary, and so well conducted and successful 
were its efforts, that, though when it was organized there were but two 
companies of United States troops west of the Mississippi River, it 
speedily erected a most efficient military organization, and mustered six 



724 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

full regiments into the service of the United States, which were 
stationed in different parts of the city, and which alone, under the 
direction of the committee and the leadership of the gallant Lyon, 
prevented the capture of the St. Louis Arsenal, under the Jackson 
regime. 

The Legislature having provided by law for the call of a convention, 
the struggle for and against Union in the choice of delegates was most 
exciting. At a meeting of Union men, held at Verandah Hall, St. Louis, 
in February, 1861, a committee reported the names of fifteen Union 
candidates, one of whom was Mr. Broadhead, who, with his colleagues, 
was elected b}^ a majority of nearl}^ six thousand votes. The Conven- 
tion assembled at Jetierson City in April following, and finding vigorous 
measures only sufficient, on the 30th of July 1861, by a vote of fifty-six 
to twenty-five, on the report of a committee of which Mr. Broadhead 
was chairman, the offices of Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secre- 
tary of State, and Treasurer, were declared vacant ; a provisional 
government was organized, and Hamilton R. Gamble was elected Gov- 
ernor, and the other vacant offices filled. During all the sessions of 
this body — which were frequent during two years — which dealt with the 
gravest questions, and which be3'Ond doubt saved the State of Missouri, 
for the time at least, to the Union cause, Mr. Broadhead was one of 
its most prominent, active and influential members, shaping its course, 
and moulding the Union sentiment of the State. While attending the 
Convention, Mr. Broadhead was appointed Provost-Marshal General 
of the department, which, with headquarters at St. Louis, embraced 
Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, the Indian Territor}^ and the lower portion 
of Iowa ; and the skill and vigor with which he discharged the delicate, 
embarrassing and most responsible duties of that office, gave only 
additional proof of his ability, while the service rendered was of value 
almost beyond estimate. 

To give any accurate account of the services of Mr. Broadhead dur- 
ing the war, would involve a history of the entire struggle in Missouri, 
quite impossible in this sketch. It must suffice to say that he was 
among the foremost of the noble men who, with earnest patriotism and 
true courage, saved Missouri to the Union, when feeble counsels would 
have lost it, and that he deserves to be honored with others, as the 
friend, counselor and supporter of the lamented Lyon. 

He fully comprehended the fact that slavery would not survive the 
war ; that freedom would be the forerunner of peace, and would cement 
the Union ; and with devoted love for the Union, he put its preservation 
beyond and above all other questions. 



JAMES O. BROADHEAD. 725 

Upon the death of Asa Jones, Esq., then United States District Attor- 
ney for the Eastern District of Missouri, at the most exciting period of 
the war, during the year 1861, and when its duties were most respon- 
sible and difficult, Mr. Broadhead was appointed to fill that office, but 
the pressure of other duties compelled him to resign it at the end of six 
months, to the extreme regret of all who knew how important it was that 
such an office at such a time, should be filled by an able and fearless 
man. 

He was chosen a member of the Constitutional Convention which 
assembled at Jefierson City, in May of the present year ; and as we 
draw this sketch to a close, he is taking a leading part in the action 
of that body, and in framing the organic law of the State. 

His great success as a legislator ; on the stump ; in council ; shaping 
the course of military afl^airs ; as Provost-Marshal of a great Depart- 
ment ; in occupations so important and so diverse, demonstrate great 
ability, and prove a wonderful versatility. But it is as a lawyer, and in 
the labors of the profession of his choice, that he excels. For this and 
kindred pursuits, his training best fits him, and here his best powers are 
most fully called into exercise. As a lawyer, he is not only successful, 
but he deserves success, and stands without dispute among the very few 
who are in the foremost rank of the profession. 

Those who are familiar with his fine personal appearance, his open, 
manly face, broad and strong, and yet genial and gentle in expression, 
cannot fail to observe how well his character is illustrated by his 
appearance. In seeking to analyze his mind and character, he should 
be described as strong, direct, straightforward, open, candid, truthful, 
severely logical, and yet graceful at times, and eloquent as well as forci- 
ble in speech. He would be found to be more wise than witty, and yet 
possessing a fine fund of humor ; remarkable rather for strength than 
for agility ; full of sympathy for the unfortunate and the suffering ; of 
inexhaustible kindness of heart and charity ; of unfailing fidelity in 
friendship ; fond of nature, and of simple tastes. 

His industry and energy, his courage and fidelity to principle, are 
illustrated in his career ; and brief and imperfect as this sketch neces 
sarily is, it falls far short of justice to him, if it fails to excite regret 
that there are not more citizens like to him in virtue and ability, and 
gratitude that there are some so worthy of honor and of imitation. 



AVILLIAM J. LEMP. 



IT is a conceded fact that William J. Lemp stands at the head of 
a manufacturing interest in St. Louis that employs a capital larger 
than that employed in the manufacture of flour, gives direct employ- 
ment to an equal number of persons, and shows an annual product of 
nearly four millions of dollars, namely, the manufacture of lager beer. 

Mr. Lemp is a native of Germany, and was born February 21, 
1836. His father was a brewer in Germany, and was thoroughly versed 
in the practical branches of beer-making before he came to America. 

In 1848, when WiUiam J. was a youth of about twelve years, his 
father emigrated with his family, a«d after visiting various portions of 
the Union, resolved upon settling in St. Louis. Here he engaged in 
brewing, and was the first to manufacture lager beer in this city. 

When William J. became old enough, he assumed the position 01 
foreman in his father's brewery, which was then on Second street, 
between Walnut and Elm. His father, Adam Lemp, is still remem- 
bered by the older inhabitants of St. Louis, as one of the most 
thoroughly practical business men of his day ; and in this connection it 
may be stated that his son has inherited all his business tact and practi- 
cability. In 1862 his father died, leaving the entire business to William 
J., under whose supervision it has since grown to such magnificent 
proportions.. 

In 1866, a partnership which existed between himself and Mr. 
Stumpf was dissolved, and Mr. Lemp began at once to erect his present 
buildings, which are colossal quarters, on Second Carondelet avenue 
and Cherokee street, being to-day one of the largest estabHshments 
of the' sort in the Western States, with a capacity of an annual brew of 
eighty thousand barrels. Although his principal trade lies within our 
city, the fame of W.J. Lemp's lager beer is extended throughout every 
State in the South and West, and the excellence of the article is con- 
sidered unsurpassable. He gives his personal supervision to the minutest 
detail of his establishment, which doubtless in a manner accounts for 
the proud pre-eminence enjoyed by him. 



728 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHEb. 

Mr. Lemp grew to manhood in St. Louis, is proud of the great city 
of his adoption, keenly ahve to her interests and prosperity, and takes a 
praiseworthy ambition in emulating the establishments of other and 
older cities. He now stands a leader of this large branch of our 
industries, and a superior representative of its character and power. 
He is just entering upon the prime of his existence, and from his future 
we have the most ample grounds to build grand expectations. Mr. 
Lemp is a small being in stature, but, like all great men, equal to the 
most gigantic enterprises. Unpretentious and modest in all his dealings 
and associations, he is very popular with every class of his fellow-citi- 
zens with whom he comes in contact. He is a man of great executive 
ability, and possesses the keenest of foresights. His work is merely 
begun, and it is to be hoped that as one of our most enterprising men, 
he may be spared to demonstrate more fully the depth and force of his 
administrative talent. 



HENRY CLAY SEXTON, 



HENRY CLAY SEXTON, the subject of this sketch, is at present 
the worthy Chief of the St. Louis Fire Department, and, in fact, 
may be justly styled the father of that efficient organization. 
Probably no man is so universally known to all classes of the citizens 
of this great metropolis as Chief Sexton, and there are few men whose 
labors entitle them to a higher place in the universal regard of the 
whole community. 

He was born in Wheeling, Virginia, in March 1828. His father, who 
was a carpenter and builder, was also a native Virginian, and gave his 
family all the educational advantages the, schools of the period afforded. 
Young Sexton received an excellent common school education, and was 
thoroughly instructed in such branches as were calculated to be of 
advantage to him in after-life. 

In 1844, when Henry Clay was but sixteen years old, his father 
removed to St. Louis, where he established himself, and soon became 
favorably known as one of the leading builders and contractors of the 
fast-growing city. Henry Clay identified himself with his father's 
business, and studied it in all its different branches. 

Up to the year 1857, the Fire Department of St. Louis consisted of 
the old style of hand machines, which were worked by a volunteer 
force. The rapid increase of the city in wealth and population, the 
immense number of new and magnificent buildings being erected and 
in contemplation, the great destniction of property by fire, and the 
constantly-increasing risks which insurance companies and property 
owners 'were obliged to run, demanded something more efficient than a 
mere volunteer force of citizens, who might or might not turn out at the 
tap of the bell. 

In forming the present organization. Clay Sexton took an active and 
honorable part, and was rewarded for his eftbrts in this direction 
by receiving the appointment as first Chief, from Mayor John M. 
Wimer, in 1857. All acknowledged the " eternal fitness " of this choice, 
and so well were the duties performed, so thoroughly did the Chief look 



730 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

after the interests of the citizens, and so successful was he in saving 
from threatened destruction the property of his fellow-citizens, that his 
labors were recognized by Mayors Filley and Taylor, who, upon their 
induction to office, immediately re-appointed him to the same position 
during their respective administrations. He continued to hold this 
important office until September, 1862, when he was relieved by the 
military order of General Schofield. It matters little what the cause 
of this removal was ; suffice it to say, it was for no neglect of duty on 
his part ; nor for any want of capacity to fill the office. Like many 
other worthy citizens, he was obnoxious to the military rulers of the day, 
and his official head must pay the penalty. 

He gave up the position he had filled for so many years with honor to 
himself and with the approbation of his fellow-citizens, and the proud 
consciousness of having fulfilled his duty to the strict letter of the law. 
He resumed the occupation of carpenter and builder, and with his 
brother, the late Hon. John Sexton, erected some of the most magnifi- 
cent buildings that adorn the city. 

But the people of St. Louis, ever mindful of the actions of a deserv- 
ing citizen, and holding in grateful remembrance the many noble deeds 
of their former Chief, backed up and supported in this just demand by 
a large number of the insurance companies of the city, who, above all 
others, were interested in having a capable and efficient man at the 
head of the Fire Department, called upon Mayor Cole, in the spring 
of 1869, and insisted on his re-appointing Clay Sexton to the office of 
Chief. The salary of the office was then two thousand dollars per 
year ; Mayor Cole agreed to make the appointment, but Clay Sexton 
refused the honor at that price. Such was his popularity, and so 
determined and anxious were the insurance companies to have him in 
fhis position, that they guaranteed him an additional sum of three 
thousand, making the salary five thousand dollars, which he accepted, 
holding the office ever since, under the different political administra- 
tions, until to-day the office is conceded to him as a sort of " divine 
right," as no other man is ever considered in connection with it. 

In politics, Mr. Sexton is and always has been, a firm Democrat ; yet, 
officially he knows no politics. To do his duty conscientiously; to 
protect the property of his fellow-citizens ; to check the progress of the 
devouring element, often at the risk of his own life, and to guide and 
direct the most efficient fire department in America : this comprises 
his highest ambition. That he has performed his duties well and 
truly his many years in office, and the universal approbation of his 
fellow-citizens, are the best evidences. 



HENRY CLAY SEXTON. 73I 

In Jul}' 1850, Mr. Sexton married Miss Sarah L. Lyon, of St. Louis. 
His family consists of four children. 

A man of fine physique and commanding presence, courageous — even 
to a fault, sociable, generous and kind-hearted, and withal, strictly 
temperate, he is regarded as one of our most useful citizens. Popular, 
in a marked degree, with the men he has under him, he is ever the first 
to respond to call of duty, never asking one of his force to face a dan- 
ger at which he himself would quail. He is still in the meridian of his 
manhood, and at the head of a fire department which, through his own 
exertions, is recognized as one of the most efficient in America. 



JAMES A. MONKS. 



IT is a well-known fact that the city of St. Louis is indebted much to 
merchants of foreign birth, who have at various periods of its event- 
ful history settled here, and who, during a long course of years, 
by a systematic course of industry and business integrity, added 
materially to its wealth and importance. Among those may be placed 
James Aspinale Monks, the head and original founder of the house of 
J. A. Monks & Sons, wholesale liquor dealers, who is to-day the oldest 
liquor dealer in the city. 

Mr. Monks was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England, February 8, 
1809. His father was engaged in merchandising, and emigrated with 
his family in 1818, settling in Lexingon, Kentucky, where he engaged 
in mercantile business, but ultimately purchased a tract of land in 
Harrison county, and turned his attention to farming. The education 
of young James, which had its beginning in England, was kept up 
in Kentucky, where, assisting his father in tilling the soil, and attending 
the district schools in winter, he obtained a thorough knowledge of the 
different branches comprising a common school education. 

His father died in the year 1831, and James A. being the oldest son, 
was thus made the head of the family, taking care of the farm in 
Hancock county, Kentucky, which his father had purchased some time 
previous to his death. Here he remained some ten years, adding to his 
agricultural pursuits considerable trading along the river. 

In 1840 he removed to Missouri and settled in Henry county, where 
he still followed tilling the soil for a livelihood for about one year, when 
he returned to Louisville, and entered the liquor establishment of his 
brother, who commanded a large trade in this branch of business. 
Here he first gained a knowledge of this business which he has so suc- 
cessfully carried on in St. Louis for over a quarter of a century. 

In 1847, Mr. Monks came to St. Louis, and established himself in 
the wholesale hquor business, on the levee. The great fire of 1849 
compelled him to remove to his present location, when he associated 
with himself Mr. John B. Ghio, and the firm became Monks & Ghio. 



734 BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES. 

This co-partnership was dissolved in 1859, when Mr. Monks took his 
two sons, William H. and Samuel V., into the business, and the present 
iirm of Jas. A. Monks & Sons was established. 

This house was, and is, among the oldest in the Mississippi Valley, 
and ranks among the heaviest in the United States. Its sterling reputa- 
tion and the high and well-tried character of the members of the firm, 
are regarded as a sufficient guarantee of the genuineness of the articles 
they handle. 

Mr. Monks was married in 1834, ^^ Miss Martha B. Gates, of 
Hancock county, Kentucky, a lady well-known for her benevolent 
character and kind disposition. His family consists of two sons, who 
are his partners in business. He was married again in 1846, to Miss 
Margaret E. Davis, of Louisville, Kentucky. 

Mr. Monks is a man of well-known public spirit, and during his long 
and active career in St. Louis, has been in different ways identified with 
many of the most important corporations of the city. He is at present 
a director in the West End Narrow Gauge Railroad, and the Manufac- 
turers' Savings Institution, a financial corporation ranking among the 
first in the land. He is also a stockholder in the Franklin Insurance 
Company, and has in other ways been connected in various capacities 
with the leading companies of the day. 

As senior and head of the house, Mr. Monks has succeeded in 
building up the strongest and most widely-respected business of the 
kind in the West, and to his unswerving business integrity and indefati- 
gable, though unostentatious, energy is its success due. 

As a citizen, he stands without reproach, and as a business man, 
second to none of his cotemporaries. His benevolent disposition is 
proverbial among all who know him, and is only second to his quiet, 
unostentatious demeanor, which never fails to elicit the esteem and 
respect of all who come in contact with him. Strictly moral in every 
walk of life, a truly high-minded. Christian gentleman, but few men 
possess, in a more marked degree, the well-merited confidence and 
warm friendship of their fellow-citizens, than James A. Monks. 



JOSEPH CRA^A^SHAW. 



JOSEPH CRAWSHAW, the senior partner in the well-known carpet 
house of J. Crawshaw & Son, was born in England, June i6, 1816. 
His ancestors for some generations were carpet manufacturers, and 
Joseph, the subject of this memoir, was raised to the business in all 
its branches, and, as a consequence, may be said to bring to this partic- 
ular branch of trade more experience and practical knowledge than any 
other man in St. Louis. His early educational advantages were mode- 
rate, but sufficient to insure success in the path in life he was destined 
to travel. 

At the age of eighteen, he came to x\merica, like thousands of other 
enterprising and energetic Englishmen, who are to be found occupying 
prominent positions in the great commercial centres of the Western 
World, to better his fortunes and find a more extended field for the 
exercise of his industry. He found employment in New Haven, Con- 
necticut, for a few months as a carpet weaver, and from 1834 ^^ ^^S^ 
he was occupied in Lowell, Massachusetts, as a weaver of ingrain and 
brussels carpets. 

In the fall of 1838 he returned to England, and entered the employ 
of Hinshall, Nephew & Co., and while thus engaged invented the 
tapestry brussels carpet. He was not aware of the value or importance 
of his invention, and the patent was issued to his employers, who 
doubtless reaped a rich harvest from the work of their employee. 

In December 1841, he resolved to retrace his steps and return to 
America, which he accordingly did the following March. Arriving in 
New York, he accidentally got into conversation with a gentleman at 
the door of a carpet store on Pearl street, which ended in his being 
employed as foreman in the factory of Henry Winfield & Co., with 
whom he remained for one year. He worked in the same capacity in 
Tariffville, Connecticut, when, in 1843, he was one of a company that 
started a carpet manufactory in Roxbur}^ Massachusetts, he himself 
being foreman, superintendent and part owner for thirteen years. While 
in Roxbury, in 1849, he was elected to the City Council on the Whig 



736 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ticket, and from a Democratic ward, such was his personal popularity. 

The change in the tariff of i845-'46 stopped nearly all carpet 
manufacturing in the United States, and Mr. Crawshaw accepted the 
position of manager of the wholesale department in the carpet house 
of Houghton, Sawyer & Co., of Boston, Massachusetts, and where he 
remained until 1858. 

An ill-advised generosity and indorsements for friends had swept 
away a fortune, which during these years he had managed to accumu- 
late, when in 1858 he came to St. Louis and worked for E. P. Pettes & 
Co. ; then with the house of Pettes & Leathe. After the lapse of two 
years, he bought out the gas-fitting department of this establishment, 
and started business for himself under the name of J. Crawshaw & Son. 

In 187 1, he combined with gas-fixings the goods he knew so well, 
taking in carpets and carrying a large stock, with well-merited success. 
In his strict attention to his business, he has well earned the large and 
constantly-increasing trade which to-day crowns his efforts. As a man 
■of business integrity, he stands high in this community. Generous and 
social by nature, his private life is blessed with friends who entertain a 
high regard for his moral purity and other estimable qualities. Honest 
and upright even to a fault, he bears an unspotted reputation and un- 
blemished name in all the relations of pubhc or domestic life. 



ROGER E. HARDING. 



'NOTHER citizen of St. Louis, who, by indomitable will and 
earnest purpose, has achieved a position of consideration and 
honor, is Roger E. Harding, President of the Manufacturers' 
Savings Bank. 

Mr. Harding was born in Logan county, Kentucky, November 22, 
1827. His education was completed at the age of nineteen, at George- 
town College, Kentucky, when he immediately entered mercantile life 
in his native place, Russellville. Here he acquired that practical 
knowledge of merchandising that has since brought him into promi- 
nence, and which he has exercised to such advantage in many and 
divers branches of trade. 

He removed to St. Louis in 1852, and for several years was engaged 
in a general commission business in cotton goods, and paid consider- 
able attention to the banking system of our country. He is the head of 
the well-known house of Roger E. Harding & Co., which is managed 
by his son, Wm. H. Harding, who is his only partner. The house 
deals largely in cotton yarns, sheetings, osnaburgs, cotton twine, rope, 
carpet warp and kindred articles, and holds the agency for several 
cotton mills in the South. 

Mr. Harding was made president of the Manufacturers' Savings 
Bank in 1872. This is one of the most solid and respectable financial 
institutions of St. Louis, and enjoys the confidence and respect of 
every member of the community. With Mr. Harding this position is 
no sinecure. He is not only the chief executive officer of the organi- 
zation, invested with the management and policy of the bank, but he 
performs the duty of cashier, and passes upon every separate transac- 
tion which occurs each day. 

During a long and eventful business career that has been singularly 
successful, he has held many positions of honor and trust, that have 
been conferred upon him by his associates and friends, and his course 
has invariabl}^ been along the high path of honor and duty. His genial 
nature and warm social qualities have won for him the unaffected esteem 
and profound regard of a host of admiring friends. 



738 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

He has been the architect of his own good fortune. With determina- 
tion and good nature he grappled with difficulties ; but these soon faded 
before his indomitable energy and will, leaving him a successful man, 
with fortune in his hands, without depriving him of the freshness of 
youth or taking away the power of enjoying it. In addition to occupy- 
ing a seat in the boards of many well-known corporations, Mr. 
Harding was for many years a director in the Union Bank of Missouri. 
In all enterprises of public interest he has always been found a willing 
worker. 

Mr. Harding, comparatively speaking, is yet quite a young man, and 
his sphere of usefulness is daily increasing. Such men never fail to 
leave an impression upon the community in which they live, and always 
leave a void when they die. Mr. Harding has still many years before 
him, it is to be hoped, during which, as in those past, he will continue 
to add materially to the commercial prosperity of St. Louis. 



ISAAC HARDIN JONES. 



'NOTHER old and influential citizen, who has passed a lifetime in 
the river trade and commerce of St. Louis, is Captain Isaac 
Hardin Jones. 

He was born in Ohio county, Virginia, February 22, 1818. His 
father was of Welsh descent, born in Delaware, but raised in Virginia. 
His mother was named Houston, and cousin of General Sam Houston. 
His father held many positions of trust in the State ; was elected to 
the Legislature of the State by the old Whig party, and when the 
Know-Nothing party arose, opposed its movements, and was re-elected 
by the Democrats. He was a farmer in easy circumstances, and a man 
who carried much weight and influence in his section of the State. 

Young Isaac received a regular collegiate course of instruction at 
Athens College, in the Hocking Valley, Ohio. It was the intention of 
the elder Jones to bring his son up to the study of the law, and such 
indeed had been his own intentions ; yet, for some reasons, after the 
completion of his collegiate course of studies, he accepted the position 
of clerk on one of the Ohio River packets running from Pittsburg to 
Louisville. He was then in his twentieth year, and this engagement 
seems to have changed the whole course of his life. In this position he 
remained several years, receiving seventy-five dollars per month, until 
his first aspirations for legal honors became entirely erased, and he 
came to look at steamboating as the business for which nature intended 
him. He afterward accepted the position of first clerk upon one of the 
mail packets running between Cincinnati and Louisville, at a salary of 
one hundred and fifty dollars per month, and remained in this situation 
until the formation of a packet line under the auspices of the Louisville 
and Cincinnati Mail Company, to ply between Louisville and St. Louis, 
when he became part owner, and commander of one of the boats at a 
salary of two hundred dollars. 

In this connection Captain Jones continued until the completion of 
the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, in 1856, when he built the St. Louis 
and New Orleans packet John C. Swan, named after the greatest steam- 
boatman of the West of that day. Captain Jones immediately took 



740 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

charge of the new enterprise, and under his careful management, 
guided by his former experience in river business, he made the Swan 
one of the most successful steamers on the Western rivers, and probably 
the most successful one that ever ran in the St. Louis and New Orleans 
trade. Captain Jones commanded this steamer at the breaking out of 
the late civil war, and in this connection has quite a scrap of history. 

During that eventful period that St. Louis and Missouri wavered 
between the alliance to the Union and a great desire on the part of 
many of the leaders to join the fortunes of the Confederacy, the Swan, 
commanded by Captain Jones, was employed by Claib. Jackson, the 
executive of the State, to convey a load of Government arms from 
Baton Rouge to St. Louis. So secretly were the arrangements made, 
and so well planned were the operations, that the arms and munitions 
of war were shipped at Baton Rouge, and other points along the river, 
in casks, as sugar, and boxes purporting to be merchandise ; and a part 
owner, who was aboard, was not aware of the nature of the cargo. 

After the boat had passed Cairo on its upward trip, by some means 
information was conveyed to General Lyon, then in command at St. 
Louis, of the nature of the cargo, and the object of the boat's visit, 
and he immediately organized a company to destroy her as soon as she 
should land at the levee. The boat arrived at the levee during the 
night, and when the company of destruction arrived, they found the}^ 
could not blow her up without sacrificing too much innocent life and 
property, and so reported to General Lyon. In the meantime the arms 
were landed, and some shipped to Jefierson City, thence to Price's 
command, but the great bulk to Camp Jackson. The next day the 
camp was surrendered and taken, and, as is well known, not without 
bloodshed, and the war of the States inaugurated in Missouri. 

During the second year of the war, on account of his Southern ten- 
dencies. Captain Jones was made a Government prisoner, and for a 
long time enjo3'ed the hospitalities of the United States in Gratiot Street 
Prison. Upon his release he immediately resumed the command of the 
J. C. Swan, which he held until the formation of the Atlantic and 
Mississippi Steamship Company, when that steamer was swallowed up 
in the effects of that unfortunate speculation. Captain Jones com- 
manded various steamers in this line, and, it is said, is the only man 
who ran his boats tlfi'ough for the company without meeting with an 
accident. 

Captain Jones afterward purchased the steamer Lady Gay, a packet 
which all river men will remember, and ran her until she was sunk 



ISAAC HARDIN JONES. 74I 

some seventy-five miles south of St. Louis, in shallow water, but never 
raised. He also commanded the steamer Dexter for some time, but has 
never since the loss of the Lady Gay invested any money in steamboat 
propert}^ • 

For some years past Captain Jones has not been actively engaged on 
the river, although, like most men who have passed the best part of 
their lives in this branch of commerce, he has always been more or less 
interested in its advancement and improvement. 

In 1846, Captain Jones married Anna Elizabeth, daughter of Mathew 
Irwin, Esq., of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, by whom he has six 
children. Like most other men who have had their fortunes bound up 
in steamboats, he has severely felt the decline of the river trade, but 
still looks forward hopefully to the opening of the mouth of the great 
river, which is expected to revive trade and commerce on the Missis- 
sippi, and place business upon its ante-bellum footing. He has never 
sought political preferment of any kind., giving his whole time and 
attention to his steamboat interests. He counts his friends by the 
thousands, who are attracted toward him as much on account of his 
social good qualities as his integrity in business transactions. He enjoys 
the inestimable blessing of good health, is still in the full strength of 
manhood, and stands ready at any moment to renew his intimate rela- 
tions with the great water highways of the West, whenever circumstances 
will justify him in so doing. 



JAMES H. BROOKMIRE. 



/ I \HE commerce of a city, and the men who conduct it, are insepar- 
_L able in their history. The swelHng aggregates which lend a 
charm to statistics, and the character impressed upon the trade 
transactions of a metropolis are alike due to the effort and influence of 
a few clear-headed and able individuals. Looking steadily through the 
dazzling aggregates in which each citizen may take an honorable pride, 
we come at last upon the foundation on which the whole superstructure 
rests, and there we find a few men of keen discernment and unfeverish 
decision, who have mapped the lines for safe enterprise, and have given 
direction to the general prosperity in which, as of right, theirs was a 
leading share. Such men become leaders, not because they covet the 
position, they rather avoid it, but because others follow. Their object 
is primarily a legitimate commercial profit, yet their influence by no 
means stops at that consummation. The necessity of buying and selling 
brings into intimate connection far separated peoples, builds lines of 
travel with all their stately works, and fosters a social life that can only 
receive its character from purely honorable sources. 

James H. Brookmire, though yet a young man, is at the head of the 
leading grocery house of St. Louis. In a business life that reaches 
now only over his thirty-seventh birthday, a score of years have been 
spent in our city. 

He was born in Philadelphia on the 8th of January 1838, and is of 
L-ish descent. In his youth he received the educational advantages of 
the public schools in his native city, and subsequently laid the founda- 
tion of his business education in a retail grocery. 

In 1855 he came to St. Louis, at the instance of his uncles, Messrs. 
H. & J. Hamill, who were then engaged in the grocery business here. 
In this house, one of the oldest in the cit^^ widely and favorably 
known throughout the South and West, he became a shipping clerk, 
and mav be said to have remained with it ever since, thoujjh it has been 
changed in name and location, and the administration has passed into 
his hands. In 1861 he became a partner. 



744 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



In 1868, Mr. Thomas Rankin, Jr., also a young man, bought the 
interest of Mr. Joseph Hamill, and the firm-name became Brookmire 
& Rankin. Mr. Rankin brought to the house abundant capital and 
implicit reliance in the judgment of his associate, Mr. Brookmire. 
From that period, now seven years ago, may be traced the ascending 
path of the great grocery house of the Mississippi Valley. That path 
leads through some of the most stormy and irregular seasons of trade 
that our merchants have ever encountered, and yet this house made 
all circumstances serve its ends while winning honorable name and 
increased patronage for St. Louis. 

If success were common to earnest endeavor in commercial life, 
there would be less to commend in the effort which has been so conspi- 
cuously favored. 

Mr. Brookmire has not been content with any partial or superficial 
knowledge in any department of his own business. No tests of quality 
that observation or chemistry could furnish were neglected by him in 
training the faculties to a quick decision as to the intrinsic value of 
articles of the trade. This knowledge, while a security to him, was 
none the less valuable to his patrons, and has gained for him the repu- 
tation of a rare judgment in details as well as in comprehensive policy. 

Possessing in a marked degree the confidence and esteem of associ- 
ates and patrons, he has systematized a business that extends over an 
empire, and whose expansion, upon the principles laid down, is as easy 
and natural as the development of the Mississippi Valley itself. The 
growth and the population of the Valley seem, indeed, to be the only 
measure and limit of the activity which he has inaugurated. The 
object of his labor and care is no Jonah's gourd, that grows up in a day 
to wither with another morning's sun, but is rather like our famed great 
trees, of which we can only see one stage of development. 

In 1867 he was married to Miss Anna Forbes, daughter of Dr. Isaiah 
Forbes, of this city. 

To a rare aptitude for business affairs, he unites engaging personal 
qualities and a manner too earnest to be assuming. Some of our cor- 
porations have the benefit of his counsel in their boards of directors, but 
they make no figure in the record of his unfinished life, as they are no 
part of his ambition. 

It is as the successful business man, of enlarged views, exact know- 
ledge and high purpose, that he is thus far to be dealt with — as one 
who has caught the inspiration of a magnificent future, and who is 
using the highest human means for its accomplishment. 




\V,.3i,,„j;uo,vn„at:<,„,p„„ „, ^1 _L^„,^ 




H. W. LEFFINGWELL. 



(iriRAM WHEELER LEFFINGWELL, son of Andrew and 
J-Jf Prudence Wheeler Leffingwell, was born May 3, 1809, on 
Norwich Hill, Hampden county, Massachusetts. His father 
was an educated man, and a farmer in moderate circumstances. 

About the year 181 7, he found himself in difficulty, from having- 
indorsed for his brother-in-law on his bond as sheriff. It ended in his 
being sold out early in 1818 ; and leaving his wife and three children 
with her father, and Hiram with his successor on the farm, he set out 
on foot for Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he had friends. Soon after 
his arrival in Meadville, he made application for the position of princi- 
pal of Meadville Academy, a very flourishing institution with some two 
hundred and fifty students. He soon sent for his family, who made the 
trip in a two-horse wagon, in the winter, arriving the last of February 
1819. 

Then commenced Hiram's education in earnest. He remained 
at the Academy six years, dividing the last two years with Alleghany 
College, under Timothy Alden, its then president. During his last year 
at school, Hon. Patrick Farrelly, member of Congress from the district, 
procured his appointment as a cadet at West Point, but the positive 
interdict of his father forbade his entrance into military life. One of 
his school-mates, George W. Cullom, was appointed to the cadetship ; 
and Hiram went with his father and family to a farm, or rather a 
tract of land in the woods, to learn how to get a living by his hands. 
But the life was not much to his taste, and on attaining his majority, he 
began the world as a school teacher, first in the Burgh school, Trum- 
bull county, Ohio, and afterward in Mercer Academy and Meadville 
Academy, in Pennsylvania. He afterward studied medicine with 
Dr. Charles M. Yates, of Meadville, but not liking the profession, was 
alternately engaged in teaching and trading, until the spring of 1838, 
when he decided to seek his fortune in the Far West. 

With testimonials from prominent citizens of Western Pennsylvania, 
recommending him to whatever community he might visit or settle in. 



746 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and also letters which the local Congressman had procured from 
Thomas H. Benton and James K. Polk, introducing him to General 
Houston, of Texas, to which republic he intended to go after visiting 
St. Louis, Mr. Leffingwell began his journey. He stopped in Cincin- 
nati to endeavor to get from General Lytle, the Surveyor-General, a 
contract for Government surveying ; but, as the only contract to be had 
was in the Black Swamp of Michigan, he continued on to St. Louis, 
and put up at the National Hotel, Market and Third streets, Stickney & 
Knight proprietor^-, then the leading house, as the "Planters" was not 
yet built. 

Having a letter of introduction to Mr. George K. McGunnegle (then 
of McGunnegle & Way) that gentleman treated Mr. Leffingwell with 
much kindness, and procured him a position in the office of General 
John Ruland, clerk of the court and ex-officio recorder of deeds. 
Mr. Leffingwell soon tired of office work, and told General Ruland that 
he would go to Fort Leavenworth to get a contract for army supplies. 
He was advised against the step by General Ruland ; and Mr. McGun- 
negle, when informed of the project, said it was unwise ; that he could 
not get a contract, and if he did, that he could not give security, and 
would be very sure to come out loser. This advice was accompanied 
by the offer of a place as assistant salesman in the wholesale grocery 
and commission house of McGunnegle & Way, which was accepted. 
After a short time, the house sent him on a collecting tour up the 
Mississippi River as far as Galena, thence across the country to Rock- 
ford, Dixon, and points on the Illinois River, and down the river home. 
While on this trip, he became enamored of the beautiful prairies of the 
Rock River country, and resolved to give up his position it St. Louis 
and become a farmer in Northern Illinois. He returned to Meadville 
for his wife and young child (the present Dr. H. S. Leffingwell) and 
moved at once to Rock River, arriving in Chicago about the middle of 
September 1838, with his household goods and gods. 

Next morning he was early at the warehouse to look after his goods, 
and while waiting for the proprietor, counted two hundred barrels of 
salt on the wharf. When Mr. Kinzie arrived, Mr. Leffingwell inquired 
the price of salt, and was told one dollar twelve and one-half cents per 
barrel if he took a part, or one dollar a barrel for the lot. He at once 
offered to take the lot if Mr. Kinzie would furnish teams to take the 
salt and his goods to Rock River. The bargain was made, and in less 
than a week the two hundred barrels of salt, the household goods, a 
hogshead of sugar, a tierce of molasses, tea, coffee, flour, etc., were 



H. W. LEFFINGWELL. 747 

delivered at his destination on Rock River, at the mouth of the 
Pecatonica. The salt was afterward all sold at from twelve to twenty 
dollars per barrel, and hauled back to Chicago, the early closing of the 
straits having cut off their supply. During the winter, Mr. Leffingwell 
went to St. Louis, converted his money into silver half dollars, and 
recrossed the river to purchase cattle in Bond, Montgomery and 
Macoupin counties, Illinois. He bought two hundred cows and drove 
them north to Rock River, arriving there in March 1839, ^"^ ^7 the 
first of May had one hundred and eighty calves running with his cows. 
The cows were purchased low, the asking price ranging from fifteen to 
thirty dollars. They were, however, usually bought by a string, or row, 
of half dollars laid edge to edge, as long as the cow's tail, which 
averaged about twelve dollars each. Mr. Lefiingwell having selected 
the animals he wished to purchase, the owner would proceed with a 
tape-line carried for the purpose, to measure the tails of the lot, and the 
half dollars were laid out on a board to correspond with the length of 
each tail. 

Mr. Leffingwell more than doubled his money and all expenses on 
his first drove of cows, but a second one the next year, did not turn out 
so well, the country having been supplied. In the meantime he had 
taken up a section of land — part of a large body of land which had 
been assigned to the exiled Poles, and reserved from sale. He put a 
double ditch and bank fence around one hundred and sixty acres of 
prairie, broke it up, and sowed it with winter wheat. He was rewarded 
with an immense crop, nearly all of which was hauled to Chicago and 
stored, the hauling alone costing more than the wheat sold for. Becom- 
ing discouraged, he sold out his improvements, utensils, stock, etc., 
but could get no ofier for five or six large stacks of wheat. On a still, 
dark night, he took his wife and child with him, and set fire to all the 
stacks at once, and as they stood close together, the pyrotechnic 
display was magnificent. 

Mr. Leffingwell then moved his family to Rockford, and began the 
study of the law in the office of Hon. Anson S. Miller and his brother. 
He remained about two years in the office of the Messrs. Miller ; then 
returned to St. Louis to finish his studies in the office of Messrs. Taylor 
& Mason, and was examined and licensed to practice by Hon. John M. 
Krum in the fall of 1843. Hon. Ephraim B. Ewing, late judge of the 
Supreme Court of Missouri, was a fellow-student and licensed the same 
week. 

Mr. George A. Hyde, who had been his fellow-clerk in General 



748 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Ruland's office, now introduced him to Jacob Smith, the county 
surveyor, who at once appointed him deputy, and turned ov^er his 
business, so that the new deputy had all the work he could do. 

Mr. Leffingwell opened an office in a small brick building on the north 
side of Chestnut street, opposite the Court-house. All the buildings 
west of the Planters' House (then recently completed and occupied) 
and east of Fifth street, were small, but had some gentlemen of 
prominence as occupants, among the number. Judge Lawless, Judge 
Mullanphy, James H. Lucas and Captain Martin Thomas. 

Soon after opening his office as surveyor, Mr. Robert C. Ewing was 
appointed United States Marshal, and Mr. Leffingwell was chosen his 
deputy. The appointment was at first declined, on the ground that 
Mr, Leffingwell did not feel justified in asking any of his acquaintances 
to go his security in the sum of $20,000, the amount of bond required. 
Hearing of this, Mr. Isaac W. Taylor, of Taylor & Mason, at once 
generously volunteered to join in the bond, and Mr. Leffingwell was 
able to enter on the duties of the office at once. Mr. Taylor's action 
in this matter was entirely disinterested, and was an unusual kindness to 
one who had no present or prospective claims on him. As the marshal 
resided in Lexington, Missouri, and only came to St. Louis on court 
weeks, twice a year, Mr. Leffingwell had entire charge of the office in 
St. Louis, and had to ride all over the State on horseback. He 
remained Mr. Ewing' s deputy during his term, and for some time after 
his successor (Captain Twitchell) came into office. 

During this time Mr. Leffingwell kept up his surveying, and had got 
a good start in the real estate business — all three offices being kept in 
one. 

He had an immense real estate surveying business, which required 
a large force to manage. Among the large subdivisions and sales they 
had to make was Stoddard Addition, now among the choicest residence 
portions of St. Louis. The}^ had great trouble in making the survey, 
the men being driven oft' the grounds frequently by the parties holding 
adv^ersely and in possession. The property was eventually laid oft" and 
platted, and the sale took place the loth, nth and 12th days of Sep- 
tember, 185 1. 

In 1852 an association of forty shares was formed for the purpose of 
buying a tract of land and laying out a suburban town on the Pacific 
road, then recently built a short distance from St. Louis. The ground 
on which Kirkwood is built was purchased, and arrangements made 
for clearing out the timber and undergrowth preparatory to a sale. 



H. W. LEFFINGWELL. 749 

According to the terms of the association, each member separately- 
owned, and each shareholder was to buy a lot at the first sale and 
improve it. The public sale was held in the spring of 1853, (the 
Pacific Railroad having reached the locality some months before,) and 
all the lots were sold. It was a day of exhilaration, and the lots sold 
well ; but of all the original stockholders few happened to be pur- 
chasers of lots, and Lefiingwell & Elliott were the first to begin 
improvements. So the growth of the town was slow at first, but for 
some years it has been a favorite place of residence. Its progress gave 
an impetus to Webster, Woodlawn, Rose Hill and other localities, all 
of which are improving rapidly. 

During the following years, comprising the period of the wonderful 
growth of St. Louis, he has attended closely to his large and important 
real estate business, and much of the choicest property in the city has 
at some time or other passed through his hands. 

About 1850, he became interested in mining and smelting copper, in 
Franklin county, Missouri, as a member of the Stanton Copper Com- 
pany. The adventure was not profitable, but many tons of copper were 
sent to market while the operations continued. The Stanton Company- 
spent more money and made more persistent efibrts to develop the 
copper interests of the State than an}^ other organization before or since. 
But railroads had not then reached the mineral district, and expenses 
incurred before the nature of the mines was rightly understood, con- 
sumed so much of the company's capital that it ceased operations after 
about four years of work. 

While surveying the Grand Prairie common fields some thirty years 
ago, Mr. Lefiingwell conceived the idea of a great out-boundar}'^ 
avenue, from north to south, one hundred and twenty feet broad, and 
extending the whole length of the city, which might in the future, and 
he believed in no ver}^ long time, become the city limits. He spoke of 
this project to Mr. Charles Collins, who was much struck with it, and 
declared that it ought to be realized at an early day. In 1849, ^ large 
map of the city was drawn, showing the projected avenue, and among 
the first to whom it was shown was Mr. Jesse G. Lindell, who the next 
day brought to the office a diagram of the property on which he resided, 
with the avenue laid out one hundred and twenty feet wide through it, 
and requested that it be so placed on the city map, then being engraved. 
This was done, and the name of "Lindell avenue" was given to the 
projected improvement. The right-of-way was granted one hundred 
and twenty feet wide, except through the Wesley an Cemetery, and 



750 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

through the land of Robert Rankin. Mr. Leffingwell then had recourse 
to the County Court to get the right-of-way condemned, but that august 
tribunal informed him that his avenue was too wide ; that it would grow 
up in weeds and grass, and would never be needed. They, however, 
ordered it to be opened eighty feet in width, and then threw aside the 
name of Mr. Lindell, who first donated the right-of-way, and gave 
it the present name of Grand Avenue. Mr. Leffingwell's idea that this 
avenue might, in time, make the city limits, was realized several years 
ago, when the city line was established six hundred and sixty feet west 
of it, and conforming to its course. 

Some years since, Hon. Frank P. Blair endeavored to get a bill 
through the Legislature to widen Grand Avenue to three hundred feet, 
but was unsuccessful. Attempts have since been made to have the 
original width of one hundred and twenty feet along its entire course, 
but have so far failed ; and as the expense of opening it (in damages 
to private property) must increase with each 3^ear, Grand Avenue will 
probably remain as it is. The wisdom of Mr. Leffingwell's design is, 
however, every day becoming more manifest. As originally projected, 
Lindell Avenue must have become, in the course of years, one of the 
finest streets in America, with its rows of trees and double drives 
and walks. 

The active mind of Mr. Leffingwell, realizing the necessity and the 
advantages to a city claiming metropolitan proportions, of spacious places 
of resort for out-door recreation and enjoyment, conceived the idea of 
establishing a grand public park for St. Louis, commensurate with her 
dignity and importance. In the year 1868, he broached the subject to 
his friends, proposing a park of three thousand acres. At first, he 
found few supporters, as the people generally were not fully impressed 
with the great public advantages of such an enterprise. However, 
after much effort to educate the community as to the desirability of this 
project, a bill was prepared and submitted to the General Assembly in 
the winter of 1870-71, but it failed in its passage, owing to the want of 
time before the close of the session. 

During the following year, with his usual persistency and determina- 
tion, he canvassed the subject with the people, and the following session 
an act was passed by the Legislature authorizing the purchase or con- 
demnation of the land, it having first reduced the area to about fourteen 
hundred acres. A Board of Commissioners, comprising a number of 
the leading representative men of the city, including himself, was organ- 
ized under the act, and a large part of the land was purchased, when 



H. \V. LEFFINGWELL. 75I 

the act was overthrown by a decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri. 
Still undismayed, and ably assisted by his partners and friends, many 
of whom he had by this time, through his earnestness and energy, 
enlisted in his support, he secured the passage of another act in the 
spring of 1874, re-establishing the Park, and this act has run the 
gauntlet of the law and been pronounced constitutional and valid by 
the Supreme Court. Thus, after six years of earnest labor, Mr. Lef- 
fingwell has the gratification of seeing his efforts crowned with success, 
and St. Louis now has, in Forest Park, a large central public park that 
will compare favorably in natural advantages with any other in America. 
The difficulties to be overcome would have discouraged most men, but 
his success is at last duly and fully appreciated by the public. 

He was appointed one of the first Board of Forest Park Commis- 
sioners under the new act, and, drawing the short term of one year, 
he was re-appointed for another term of six years. The well-known 
character of Mr. Lefiingwell for strict integrity, rigid economy and 
in-defatigable earnestness in anything he undertakes, is a strong guar- 
antee that this public trust has been placed in worthy hands, and that 
the public money will be judiciously, faithfully and honestly expended. 

Incidental to the establishment of Forest Park, he was also instru- 
mentally the means of establishing the smaller parks at the same time — 
O' Fallon Park in the northern end of the city, and Carondelet Park in 
the southern. 

Still not satisfied with his efibrts to improve St. Louis, he is now 
engaged in the estabhshment of two grand boulevards to connect the 
city with Forest Park, respectively one hundred and fifty and one hun- 
dred and ninety-three feet wide, and another extending from Tower 
Grove Park and Shaw's beautiful Botanical Garden, on the fine of the 
King's Highway, passing the east fine of Forest Park to Belief ontaine 
Cemetery, thence past O' Fallon Park to Grand avenue and the Fair 
Grounds. This will connect all the large parks and cemeteries of 
St. Louis, and vastly improve the choice suburban property in its 
vicinity. 

These parks and this system of boulevards will, in after years, stand 
as a perpetual record of the enterprise, public spirit, foresight and 
energy of H. W. Lefiingwell, the Nestor of real estate in St. Louis. 



CHARLES W. STEVENS, M.D. 



CHARLES WHITTLESEY STEVENS was born June i6, 1817, 
in the town of Pompey, Onondaga county, State of New York. 
His father was a cabinet-maker, and was descended from a Welsh 
ancestry ; his mother was of Enghsh descent, and was of the Field 
family of Connecticut. 

He received his early education in the academy of his native village, 
then quite a noted institution, and one of the first organized west of 
Albany. From this town and its academy have gone forth many men 
whose names are extensively known. Here were born and educated, 
Horatio Seymour, Attorney-General Williams, Judge Leroy Morgan, 
of Albany ; Judge Lucian Birdseye, now of New York ; Judge Charles 
Mason, of Iowa, formerly United States Commissioner of Patents ; 
and not least, as a blessing to mankind, Jeremiah Carhart, the inventor 
of the melodeon, an instrument that has given music to the millions, 
and more than any other, has exerted a happifying and refining influ- 
ence in church, parlor and cabin, to the bounds of the country. 

On arriving at an age when it was important to make choice of 
an occupation, young Stevens determined upon that of civil engi- 
neering and surveying, and in order to carry out his purpose, he, 
like many others not blessed with rich parents, resorted to teaching 
in the "district schools" to obtain the means for completing his 
education ; teaching in the winter and returning to the academy in 
the summer. 

In 1839 ^^ turned his steps to the West, and after encountering 
some discouraging vicissitudes as relating to success in his chosen 
occupation, he found himself in the town of Rushville, Illinois. Here 
a change came over his professional aspirations, and he entered upon 
the study of medicine under the direction of Dr. George Rogers. In 
1840 he came to St. Louis to attend lectures in the medical department 
of Kemper College, an institution founded in that year by those eminent 
and worthy pioneers, McDowell, Moore, DeWolf, Prout and Hall. 



754 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1842 he received his diploma from the hands of the College presi- 
dent, the now venerable Rev. E. Carter Hutchinson. With M.D. 
added to his name, he at once determined to try his fortune here ; and to 
the present time has been regularly engaged in his professional duties. 
In this thirty-three years of his labor, how many of his professional 
associates has he followed to their resting place ! — Beaumont, Tiffin, 
Prout, McCabe, Reyburn, Linton, Holmes, Watters, Pope, McDowell, 
the two Lanes, and a host besides, are gone ; but they still live in the 
memory of thousands. 

In 1844, Dr. Stevens was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in the 
medical college where he graduated. He held this position till 1849, 
when he accepted the same function in the St. Louis Medical College. 
He continued in this connection till 1855, when he was elected to the 
professorship of General, Special and Surgical Anatomy, in the same 
institution. During the thirteen years in which he held this chair, he 
lectured upon his special subject to thousands, who are now scattered 
over this great Valley. 

In 1868, Dr. Stevens resigned his professorship to take charge of the 
St. Louis County Insane Asylum, having been elected its superintendent. 
At this time, and for several years previously, he was a member of the 
board of managers of the Missouri State Lunatic Asylum. Before 
entering upon active duties in the County Asylum, he visited most of the 
celebrated asylums of our country to observe modes of treatment, 
discipline and general management. In the organization of the estab- 
lishment, in rules, regulations, etc., he took for a model the asylum 
under the superintendence of the celebrated Dr. Kirkbride, of Phila- 
delphia. 

In the treatment of the insane, Dr. Stevens seemed to have found 
the occupation for which his nature, in the qualities of his head and 
heart, had fitted him. In him these children of misfortune found a true 
friend. The anxious friends and kinsfolks of these afflicted ones ; a 
discriminating public ; the censorious press, never had cause for aught 
but commendation. Our citizens will long remember this era of four 
years in the history of this, our greatest and noblest charity. 

The charge of an institution such as the St. Louis County Insane 
Asylum is no sinecure ; the responsibility and weight of care resting 
upon the shoulders of any superintendent who performs his duty with 
conscientious fidelity, is no light load. 

In 1872, the Doctor resigned the office and returned to general prac- 
tice in the city, where he is much engaged in the treatment of insanity 



CHARLES W. STEVENS, M . D . 755 

as a specialty, and is often called as an expert in medico-legal trials 
where the plea of insanity is urged. In these inquests, when the public 
sentiment is generally divided and excitement runs high, we believe 
that no one ever questioned his moral integrity; he fearlessly advances 
his opinion, onl}^ desiring that strict and impartial justice be the end 
attained. 

His connection with the educational interests of St. Louis is also 
marked as well worthy of record. He was twice chosen to serve on 
the Board of Directors of the Public Schools, and while with this 
body, was one of its most energetic members. 

Dr. Stevens was married in 1844, to a daughter of the late Colonel 
P. M. Dillon — a lady of excellent intellectual and social qualities ; his 
family now consists of his wife and two sons — Frank H., who is now 
residing in Colorado, and Charles D., engaged in the study of medicine. 

In 1850, the Doctor made a trip to Europe, and spent a year in visit- 
ing the hospitals and medical schools of London, Dublin and Paris. 

He was one of the corporators of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, 
and has always taken a deep interest in its labors, having added man}- 
very valuable specimens to its cabinet. The rare fossil known as Bos 
Cavifrons^ an extinct species of the ox, is one of his contributions. 

In the late war. Dr. S. was at three difierent times in service as a 
contract surgeon ; he was for four months Post Surgeon at Pilot Knob ; 
was for several weeks at the siege of Corinth ; and afterward on a 
hospital steamer near Vicksburg, and entered the city on the river side 
in time to witness the grand occupation by the Federal army. 

While he never aspired to distinction in the great commercial walks 
of life, in his ordinary every-day intercourse with the world he was a 
good and accurate business man. Valuable as his life has been in the 
practice of medicine, presenting as it does a bright example to all 
3^oung men of the profession, it is in his private character, in his many 
virtues, that he is still more worthy of imitation. His private and per- 
sonal character afford an example well worthy of the emulation of all. 
To such a man, the goods of this world and favors of fortune have other 
attractions than the mere possession of riches — the power of doing 
good, of casting his unostentatious charities about him, and lightening 
the weary ways of his afflicted and suffering fellow-man. 

During his long intercourse with the people of St. Louis, his integrity 
of life has been like that of Ca2sar's wife, "above suspicion." In all 
matters of business, his word was as good as his bond, and no man 
questioned its validity. 



yt6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Though now well advanced in life, Dr. Stevens is still in the enjoy- 
ment of unimpaired faculties and robust health, pursuing his daily 
avocations with all the wonted energy and vigor of earlier years. 
Surrounded by everything that is calculated to smoothe the path to the 
grave, his intercourse with the world is just as full of sunshine and 
geniahty as in the days of his prime. 



L. CH. BOISLINIERE, M.D. 



IN all ages and by all peoples, as far back as go the researches 
of the historian, the physician has been greeted and honored as the 
friend and benefactor of mankind. Go where he will, he carries 
with him the benisons and good will of his fellow-beings. Even upon 
the battle-field, in the midst of contending hosts, the sm-geon moves on 
secure in his sacred calling, as a blessing to friend and foe, and as 
one who knows no enemy but pain and disease. Assuredly, if any 
class of men deserve well of their cotemporaries, it is that class that 
spend a life-time in alleviating human sufterings. 

Dr. Louis Ch. Boisliniere was born September 2, 1816, in the 
Island of Guadeloupe, French West Indies, and is a descendant of 
one of the oldest families of the Islands, which had located in this sec- 
tion of the New World over two hundred years ago. They were an 
old an influential family of planters, and during the insurrection of 
Toussaint, the general insurrection of the negroes in 1793, the family- 
fled to Boston, United States, where the father of the Doctor was 
born in 1793. In 1805, when order was restored by Napoleon, after 
the peace of Amiens, they returned to their possessions in the West 
Indies, where the Doctor was born. 

His father, who was an extensive sugar planter, in order to give his 
son the benefits of a thorough education, took him to France in 1825, 
where he spent thirteen years in scientific, classical and legal studies, 
under the most noted professors and at the most celebrated institutions 
of learning of the country, and he took a diploma of licentiate in law 
from the University of France. Young Boisliniere had been well pre- 
pared for these higher branches of his studies, as he had previously 
passed three years at the schools of New Jersey, where the foundation 
of his education was laid. 

His father and mother having both died, young Boisliniere returned 
to the West Indies in 1839, ^° look after the unsettled business of his 
family, and where a brother was in charge of the family estate. After 
remaining in the West Indies a few months, and settling such business 



758 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

connected with the sugar plantation as demanded his attention, he made 
an extensive tour of South America, traveHng in the general course of 
Humboldt, and passing through the pampas and tiger regions of many 
South American countries. The Doctor having previously acquired a 
knowledge of the Spanish language, was by this means greatly facili- 
tated in his journey. In company with a party of natives, he spent his 
time in tiger-hunting, alligator-shooting, and viewing the thousand 
majestic splendors of the South American forests. Here the Doctor 
spent six months, as a recreation after thirteen years of hard study in 
the schools of France. 

Upon his return to the West Indies from South America, Dr. Bois- 
liniere soon learned of the agitation being worked up in England, 
headed by the great Wilberforce, for the emancipation of all the negro 
race then held in slavery, and with a depth of foresight scarcely to be 
expected in one of his age, he plainly saw that the West Indies would 
no longer afford a field of promise for his future course ; and believing 
firmly that this agitation would eventually result in the freedom of the 
negroes, which it did in 1848, he determined to leave and come to the 
United States. 

In 1842, Dr. Boisliniere landed at New Orleans, where it was his 
intention to locate, but finding that a knowledge of the English language 
was necessary to success, even in New Orleans, he went to Lexington, 
Kentucky, with letters of introduction to Henry Clay's family-, and 
from whom, upon the presentation of his letters, which were from 
warm personal friends of the great Kentucky statesman, he received 
many courtesies. Here he remained some time, acquiring a knowledge 
of the language of the country. With a view of locating, he went to 
Louisville, where his knowledge of the classics was of great benefit to 
him. He immediately took charge of the Classical Institute, that but a 
short time previous had been under the direction of the Jesuits, who 
had gone to New York. His success in his new position was all he 
could desire. He soon became extensively known, in connection with 
this institution of learning, as a ripe scholar and polished gentleman, 
and his reputation as a teacher of languages soon brought large num- 
bers of students to this shrine of education from all parts of the country. 

In this connection, he first met with Mary Ann, daughter of Stephen 
L. Hite and Martha O. Pendleton, both of old Virginia families, to 
whom he was married May 3, 1847. After his marriage, he soon 
became attracted by the growing reputation of St. Louis, and upon due 
consideration he determined to cast his fate with the growing city. 



L. C. BOISLINIERE, M . D . 759 

To this city he accordingly removed, and completed the medical 
studies he had commenced in France and continued in Kentucky, and 
graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in the Medical Department of the 
St. Louis University in 1848. He then settled in St. Louis and began 
the practice of his profession, which he has continued for the last 
twenty-seven years. 

In 1846, Dr. Boislinere was elected a member of the Academy of 
Science, and subsequently became one of its vice-presidents. 

In 1853, he assisted in opening, under the auspices of the Sisters of 
Charity, the first lying-in hospital and foundling home ever established 
in America. This institution has steadily grown in usefulness and 
importance since its foundation, proving an inestimable blessing to 
thousands of the unfortunates of mankind. The Doctor still continues 
his connection with it. 

In 1858 he was elected Coroner of St. Louis county, and was 
re-elected to the same office in i860, holding the position until Decem- 
ber 1861, when, on account of his unwillingness to take what was 
termed the "iron-clad oath," he resigned. This he did from conscien- 
tious scruples. On account of this act, displaying so plainly his feelings 
and predilections in the great struggle then pending between the two 
sections of the country, he was assessed as one of the disloyal citizens 
of St. Louis by General Halleck. Dr. Boisliniere, with a number of 
other prominent citizens who came under the same ban, addressed a 
respectful protest to Major-General Halleck, then in command, against 
this assessment as being not only unlawful, but in every manner unjust. 
This assessment was made to assist Union families, said to have been 
driven from Missouri by the rebels. 

In 1865 he was elected a member of the Anthropological Society of 
Paris, and in 1870, was called to the chair of Professor of Obstetrics 
and Diseases of Women and Children in the St. Louis Medical College, 
and has ever since held this position in connection with the clinic for 
the diseases of women at the Sisters' new Hospital on Grand avenue. 

During the long course of his practice in St. Louis, Dr. Boisliniere 
has uniformly commanded the respect and confidence of not alone his 
brother practitioners, but of the entire community. His practice 
extends to all circles of society. Kind-hearted to a fault, he is always 
ready to respond to the sick call, whether it come from the haunt of the 
poor man or the brown-stone front of the rich. An appeal from suffer- 
ing humanity is enough to arouse him at any time, with or without 
reward. Among the poorer classes who have experienced his benevo- 



760 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

lence, Dr. Boisliniere has a wide-spread reputation. Many young 
doctors who, upon starting out in the world have heard his cheering 
words, will bear record of his universal kindness and cheerful disposi- 
tion until the last day of their existence, as they recall his words of 
encouragement. 

To his profession he is enthusiastically devoted, and has spent his 
whole life in its advancement. He has always been a hard student, and 
very justly bears the reputation of being one of the best-read men in 
the medical profession. He is possessed of one of the most extensive 
libraries of any private citizen of St. Louis ; nor is it altogether for 
ornament, as its well-used volumes clearly testify. He is in excellent 
health, and to all appearances is far from the end of his useful career. 
In society and the private walks of life, as in his profession, he occupies 
a place in its lirst ranks. He is a man of broad and comprehensive 
ideas upon any subject, an earnest and intelligent conversationalist, and 
speaks with warmth and enthusiasm upon all topics in which he is 
interested. His pleasing manners, polished address and social quali- 
ties make him very popular in polite and refined circles, where his 
society is much sought after. At his own fireside, his cheerful disposi- 
tion makes him adored ; his scholarly attainments and refined tastes 
have surrounded him with everything to make life enjoyable, all of 
which he appreciates. Take him all-in-all, he is "one among a thou- 
sand," — a credit to the medical profession, and an honor to our great 
metropolis. 



WILLIAM HAMILTON 



CAJMONG the high-minded and hberal merchants of St. Louis, those 
1L\. who are keenly alive to all the varying requirements of trade, 
and who conduct operations of the most extended and weighty 
character, and who, above all others, have succeeded in making St. 
Louis the great commercial metropolis she is : among those men, we 
say, who deserve well of the pubHc, is William Hamilton, the senior 
partner in the well-known house of Hamilton & Bartle, one of the great 
and powerful pork packing establishments of the city. 

Mr. Hamilton was born in Belfast, Ireland, October 27, 1827. His 
father was engaged in the provision business in the old country. Young 
Hamilton had received a good common school education. 

He accompanied his father to America in 1846, and first went to 
work for a farmer in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, for the space 
of one year, during which time he spent his leisure moments at a 
neighboring school. 

His father had settled in Chillicothe, Ohio, and engaged in the pack- 
ing business, which, during the years 1847-48-49, had become quite an 
important branch of trade with Europe, owing to the removal of the 
import duty on meats by the British Government in 1847, and which 
action had induced many large packers from Belfast and Liverpool to 
come to America and commence operations in parts of Ohio. Young 
Hamilton engaged in business with his father, in which connection he 
remained until 1849, when he made a trip to Europe, returning to- 
America in the fall of 1849, fi'o™ which year dates his connection with 
the business of St. Louis. 

Mr. Hamilton engaged with the house of Hewitt, Roe & Co., and 
remained until the house dissolved, b}^ the withdrawal of Captain John 
J. Roe, who established the house of J. J. Roe & Co., of w^hich 
Mr. Hamilton became the foreman, for which position his many years 
of experience in the packing business eminently qualified him. This 
position he held for ten years, from 1855 until 1865, during which time 
he had earned the reputation of being one of the most energetic and 
trustworthy business men in the packing business. Ever on the alert to 
forward the business of the house, he always knew the ups and downs 



762 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

of the market in which he operated, and it is an acknowledged fact 
to-day that the powerful house of John J. Roe & Co., was materially 
assisted on its road to success by the individual efforts of its foreman, 
Mr. Hamilton. 

In 1865, Mr. Hamilton first became a partner in the house, and upon 
the death of Mr. Roe, which took place in 1870, he continued the busi- 
ness, associating with himself Captain Bartle, thus constituting one of 
the most flourishing houses of the West, under the firm name of 
Hamilton & Bartle. 

Mr. Hamilton has been twice married. Of the first marriage there 
"were two children, one of whom still lives ; of the second marriage there 
are also two children, both living. 

In 1874, ^^'- Hamilton was elected president of the National Pork 
Packers' Association of the United States, an honor to which his promi- 
nent position in this branch of trade in America certainly entitled him. 
He has served as a director in the Merchants' Union Exchange of St. 
Louis, the United States Insurance Company, and has been 6onnected 
w^ith many other organizations of importance, where his sound counsel 
and business sense have made him acceptable. 

Mr. Hamilton has had a life-long experience in the pork-packing 
business, and is regarded by parties in this trade as a man whose judg- 
ment is second to none in the Union. In everything he undertakes, he 
is active, earnest and thorough-going, occupying a lofty and enviable 
position in commercial circles as a man of strict honor and business 
integrity. 

In the private walks of life he is genial and sociable, and is endeared 
"by these qualities to a large circle of friends and acquaintances. 

As a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Hamilton occupies a front rank in 
St. Louis ; in all enterprises of a public nature, or which may in any 
way redound to the public weal, he is liberal and generous, alwaj's 
coming forward and assisting in a manner so material as to make his 
influence felt. His character for benevolence is w^ell known ; to worthy 
objects of charity his purse is ever open ; the trul}' worth}^ never apply 
to him for assistance without becoming the objects of his wide-spread 
bounty. 

He is now in the strenoth of manhood, in the full tide of business 
success, blessed with a sound and unimpaired constitution, happy in his 
public and private relations, and now, in the meridian of life, enio3'ing 
the well-earned reward of many years of hard toil and strict attention 
to business. 



JAMES COLLINS. 



ONE of the most important branches of industry of St. Louis, and 
one which has assisted materially in building up its vast commer- 
cial and mercantile influence, is the iron trade. In this particular 
branch of trade, some of the largest fortunes have been realized ; to its 
proper development some of our most energetic citizens have given the 
best years of their existence. Among this class may be counted 
James Collins, whose name, for nearly half a century, has been 
intimately connected with some of the most notable enterprises in the 
manufacture of machinery, and the development of the iron trade in 
St. Louis. 

He was born January 29, 1818, at a place back of Toronto, in Upper 
Canada. His parents were both Irish. His father at one time held a 
position in the civil service of the Canadian Government. At the age 
of nine years, he was left alone in the world by the death of both 
father and mother. He never attended school in his life. All the 
learning or education he possesses was gained in after— hours, by the 
light of a tallow candle ; — so he has none to thank for what he now 
possesses but his own untiring energies. 

In 1827, after the death of his parents, he entered the foundry of 
Sheldon & Deutcher, Toronto, as an apprentice to the business. Here 
young James remained until 1833, when he resolved to face the wide, 
wide world in search of fortune, and, although but very young, relying 
on his own energies for advancement, he started for Buffalo, New 
York, where he found employment in the iron works of Gibson, 
Grayson & Co., and assisted in building the machinery of the old 
steamer Governor Marcy, then in course of construction at Black 
Rock. In the fall of 1833, when but ifteen years old, he started the 
foundry of Eli Wilkinson, on the Buffalo Flats, such was his pro- 
ficiency, even at that early age, in his business. 

For some reason, of but little importance to this memoir, he became 
dissatisfied with Buffalo, and the same fall of 1833 he crossed the 
mountains in a stage for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he remained 



764 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

until March, when he found himself out of employment and, what was 
still worse, out of funds. But the youth who, at the age of fifteen, had 
the ability to build a foundry, was not to be daunted by such a trifling 
occurrence as an empty purse ; so he shipped as a deck-hand on the 
steamer Galenian, under Captain Henry Beers, and started for St. 
Louis, and for the first time saw the city wherein he was destined to 
become one of its most influential business men. 

In 1834 he entered the foundr}? of Gaty & Coonce, where he 
remained until i860, filling the positions, respectively, of boy, journey- 
man, foreman, superintendent and partner. Thus, in the course of 
twenty-six 3^ears, the poor deck-hand on a steamboat, who had never 
seen the inside of a school-house to receive any of the blessings of edu- 
cation, by his own individual merits raised himself to the proud position 
of partner in one of the most extensive iron works in the great metro- 
polis of St. Louis. What a record to be proud of! And during these 
long years of hard toil, no man can point to James Collins and say that 
he was ever known to commit a dishonest or dishonorable action. How 
many men now living in St. Louis can look back upon such a record ? 
and what a patrimony to leave to his family ! During these years the 
firm had changed its name six times, and when, in 1853, Mr. Collins 
was admitted, it was known as Gaty, McCune & Co., and known as the 
Mississippi Foundry, on Main street, between Cherry and Morgan 
streets. 

In the fall of 1859, Mr. Collins sold his interest in the firm of Gaty, 
McCune & Co., and in 1862 he made an extended tour of Europe, 
visiting the principal iron works of England, Ireland, Scotland, France, 
Germany and Austria, taking notes of the manner in which European 
works were carried on, and improving himself by observation in this 
branch of the world's industries. He returned to St. Louis, and in 
1863, he bought the Broadway Foundry, corner of Broadway and Can- 
street, and associated with him Mr. John J. HoUiday, in the still exist- 
ing business of Collins & Holliday. 

Mr. Collins was married May 8, 1839, ^" ^^^^ ^^^^ ^t. Louis Cathedral, 
by Father Leutz, to Miss Jane Goney, of St. Clair county, IlHnois, and 
by whom he has seven children, all living. 

He has from time to time held important positions upon the boards of 
directors of several of our most important organizations. He has for 
3^ears been a director in the Broadway Bank, one of the first financial 
institutions of the city, and a large stockholder in the Lewis Iron Works 
and the South St. Louis Iron Works. He is at present interested in 



JAMES COLLINS. 765 

the Meramec Iron and Mining Company, and in the Big Muddy Furnace 
at Grand Tower. 

Under a very quiet and unostentatious surface, Mr. Collins combines 
wonderful business energy and perseverance in the accomplishment of 
any project undertaken by him. He is very quick to notice oppor- 
tunities for business advantages, and keen to put his projects into prac- 
tice. Thoroughly reliable, honorable and honest almost to a fault in all 
his business relations, his word is as good as his bond in allbusi ness 
transactions. 

In private life his social qualities make him much sought after, and 
he counts his friends by the thousands. During so many years of toil 
and struggle, it is not surprising that he has amassed a splendid com- 
petency, which he uses to the best advantage, and which it is the wish 
of his friends he may live many years to enjoy. 



JAMES AV. PARAMORE. 



COLONEL JAMES WALLACE PARAMORE, although not 
connected with the early history of this city, yet as the origi- 
nator and founder of an enterprise which is to make St. Louis 
one of the leading cotton markets of the world, is entitled to have his 
name inscribed prominently among the many other influential and enter- 
prising citizens, who have by their wealth, wisdom and sagacity, 
contributed to build up the commercial prosperity of this great city. 

Colonel Paramore was born near Mansfield, Ohio, December 27, 
1830, and is consequently in the full vigor of his manhood. His father, 
John Paramore, was a well-to-do farmer, of English descent, who had 
immigrated to Ohio from Virginia. The family consisted of eleven chil- 
dren, of which James W. was the tenth. Plis education, until he arrived 
at his seventeenth year, was such as could be obtained at the district 
schools of the da}^ working on his father's farm in summer, and attend- 
ing school in winter. And again let it be remembered, that this has been 
the early experience of many men, who to-day are representatives of 
noble American manhood. From a very early period, it was his great 
ambition to take a regular collegiate course, but the financial condition 
of his father seemed a barrier to any such aspirations. But young 
James had set his mind upon a collegiate education, and to obtain this 
desired end he set himself to work. When he arrived at his seven- 
teenth 3^ear, he proposed to his father that, in consideration of com- 
manding his own> time and the proceeds of his own labor, he would 
relinquish all claims to the paternal estate. To this his father rather 
reluctantly assented, and the young man left the homestead in search 
of what he so earnestly desired, with a firm determination to overcome 
all obstacles in its attainment. He entered the academy at Mansfield, 
and paid for his tuition with the proceeds of his manual labor. The 
next season he entered Granville College — now Dennison University, 
Ohio, where he began a regular course of literar}^ and scientific studies, 
in connection with the classics. Here he remained four years, still 
supporting himself by his own labors. 



768 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

After completing his collegiate course, he removed to Montgomery, 
Alabama, where he taught for two years in the academy of that city ; 
and then returning to Ohio, entered the law office of Bartley & Kirk- 
wood, in Mansfield, and began the study of the law. He then went to 
the law school of Albany, New York, where he graduated in 1855, as 
a bachelor of laws, and received his license to practice. A fortunate 
investment he made in property in Crestline, Ohio, on his return from 
Alabama, enabled him to complete his law studies, and gain a pro- 
fession. 

He then went to Cleveland, Ohio, and opened a law office, and 
entered the arena for professional honors, and was rising rapidly in his 
profession, when in 1857 he embarked in a commercial speculation, 
which proved disastrous, and deprived him of all his worldly pos- 
sessions. 

He then turned his attention to the West, in search of some suitable 
location to retrieve his fortunes, and came to Missouri, settling in 
Washington, where he resumed the practice of the law, and also pub- 
lished the Washington Advertiser, a newspaper of much local influence 
and weight. Here he remained until the breaking out of the late war, 
when he took his family back to Ohio, and entered the United States 
service as Major of the Third Ohio cavalry, in which capacity he 
served until the spring of 1862. After the battle of Stone River, the 
Colonel of the regiment resigned, and Major Paramore was promoted 
over the Lieutenant-Colonel and senior Major to fill the vacanc}', and 
a part of the time commanded the Second cavalry brigade, until he 
resigned in 1864. 

He served in the armies of the Ohio and Cumberland under Buell, 
Rosecrans and Thomas, and was very popular as an officer. During 
his term of service he participated in twenty-seven different engage- 
ments, escaping without a wound. 

In 1864 he resigned his commission, and entered the banking busi- 
ness in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1867 he turned his attention to 
railroading, and got up the charter for the " Tennessee and Pacific 
Railroad," which was designed to connect with the Southern Pacific 
or Memphis and El Paso road, and to run from Memphis, Tennessee, 
to Norfolk. This road was mainly designed to open up the vast 
mineral wealth of the Cumberland Mountains and East Tennessee, and 
make it tributary to the manufacturing interests of Nashville. Liberal 
aid was secured from the State Legislature, and also from the counties 
through which it passed ; and the work of construction was com- 



JAMES W. PARAMORE. 769 

■menced in 1868, with a good prospect for its early completion. But a 
change in the politics of that State in 1869, was followed by unfriendly 
legislation and a ruinous decline in the price of its bonds, which caused 
a suspension of the work, with only a small portion of the road com- 
pleted. He continued to operate that portion of the road as superin- 
tendent and general manager, hoping for a change in the financial 
policy of the State, so that his favorite project could be carried out and 
the road completed. But. as it was an expensive road to build, and, 
by the adoption of its new Constitution, the State had prohibited the 
issuance of any more bonds to aid railroads, and capitalists were 
becoming more and more timid in their investments — particularly in 
the South — it was evident that the means could not be obtained to 
complete it, at least for the present, and the completed portion was too 
short to make either money or refutation. So Colonel Paramore 
severed his connection with that road, and sought a new field for his 
active energies in this city. 

He arrived here about the time of the completion of the Iron Moun- 
tain and Southern Railroad, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas 
Railroad, down into the cotton-producing country of Arkansas and 
Texas. Up to that time St. Louis merchants had paid but little atten- 
tion to the "fleecy staple," and, in fact, no organized efibrt had been 
made to secure it as one of the great and valuable branches of our 
commerce. 

His quick perception was not long in discovering that the completion 
of these railroads into the very heart of the best cotton-producing 
country in the world, opened up a new field of enterprise, and rendered 
it possible, with proper effort, to make St. Louis one of the leading 
cotton markets of the world. 

After consulting with the officers of these roads, as well as some of 
the principal steamboat lines, and finding that they were willing and 
anxious to co-operate with the merchants of the city in an effort to build 
up and establish a market for the staple in St. Louis, he at once pro- 
ceeded to organize a company for the building of suitable warehouses 
and compresses, for the purpose of cheapening the handling of cotton, 
so as to enable St. Louis to successfully compete with established 
markets. He readily obtained the co-operation of such enterprising 
merchants as Senter & Co., Adolphus Meier & Co., Marmaduke & 
Brown, Shryock & Rowland, Gilkerson & Sloss, Bushey & Drucker, 
Sells & Co., Bemis, Mariott & Co., the Memphis & St. Louis Packet 
Compan}', and many others ; and in July of the same year, a substan- 
49 



770 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

tial company was organized, with seventy-five thousand dollars capital 
paid in, and Colonel Paramore was elected president, and authorized to 
purchase the necessary grounds and erect suitable buildings and presses 
to carry out the objects of the company. 

The first board of directors of the company comprised Messrs. D. W. 
Marmaduke, John A. Scudder. W. M. Senter, Miles Sells, W. P. 
Shryock, A. A. Bemis, J. W. Paramore, Celsus Price, J. W. Sloss, 
Frank Bushey, and T. S. Foster. 

The officers were — J. W. Paramore, president : John A. Scudder, 
vice-president; Leslie Marmaduke, secretary and treasurer: R. B. 
Wright, auditor and general book-keeper. 

The grounds selected and purchased were on the Iron Mountain and 
Southern Railroad, at the foot of Park avenue, running through to the 
river, one hundred and eighty-three by three hundred feet, and upon 
this ground the company erected a substantial warehouse for storage 
purposes, and also purchased one of the "Taylor Hydraulic Com- 
presses," the largest and most powerful ever built in the United States. 

The advantages secured by this location and the general arrange- 
ment of the buildings were not long in manifesting themselves ; by 
cheapening the cost of handling cotton in this city as compared with 
other markets — saving all drayage, and by the aid of the powerful 
compress, the company were enabled to load cars to their full capacity 
of 20,000 to 22,000 pounds to the car, which enabled the railroad 
companies to reduce their rates to Eastern cities. 

Just as effect follows cause, soon a large increase in the receipts of 
cotton at this market was apparent, and the company has found it 
necessary to enlarge its buildings every year since, to meet the growing 
demands of this newly-established branch of industry. Last year they 
added a building one hundred and forty by three hundred feet ; a sepa- 
rate receiving platform sixty by three hundred feet ; also a delivery 
platform four hundred and eighty-two feet long by fifty feet wide, 
giving a total floor surface of over s/x acres. And the present 3'ear 
they have increased the capital stock of the company to $300,000, and 
purchased two hundred and seventy-seven by three hundred feet more 
ground, and have commenced the erection of another large warehouse 
covering the whole of the last mentioned purchase, to which will be 
added another compress, which will be completed by the opening of 
the cotton season of the present year. This will give to St. Louis the 
largest and most complete cotton warehouse in the United States, 
having a floor surface of over eleven acres (with the platforms), or 



JAMES W. PARAMORE. 771 

nine acres under cover, and so arranged that every transportation line 
leading to or from the city can receive or discharge cotton at the ware- 
house of this company in bulk and without any expense for drayage. 
Every great enterprise must have a beginning, and when St. Louis 
shall have become a market of half a million bales of cotton annually, 
then will the efforts of Colonel Paramore and his associates be fully 
appreciated. 

Colonel Paramore was married in the fall of 1854 ^^ Miss Helen 
Clark, of Monroe ville, Ohio, by whom he has three children. Mrs. 
Paramore possesses every admirable qualification of wife and mother. 

As was stated in the first part of this memoir, Colonel Paramore is 
still in the full vigor of his manhood and intellectual powers, and in the 
enterprise to which he has given his energies and abilities, daily extend- 
ing his sphere of usefulness, and adding to the material wealth of the 
city of his adoption. He is of a. very social disposition, unassuming, 
but courteous in his manners, and a man of acknowledged business 
integrity and mercantile ability. His many admirable qualities, together 
with his straightforward manner of dealing, have secured to him hosts 
of friends and admirers, who ever stand read}" to second his laudable 
enterprise — to make St. Louis the most influential cotton market of the 
Union. 



JAMES ER\V1N YEATMAN. 



OF JAMES E. YEATMAN it may be truly said, that the world is 
better for his having lived. A long and stainless record is lighted 
up wdth an active benevolence that may be matched, yet cannot be 
excelled in the history of any time. This philanthropy, so catholic as 
to embrace humanity as a whole, has ever been guided by a judgment 
such as has rarely been given to men, and entitles him to the high place 
which he fills in the affections of a people who do not easily forget. 
To recount the services that have made many a hard pillow softer ; that 
have dispelled the gloom that ever attends on suffering ; that have been 
the theme of admiring camps and barren yet grateful homes, in which 
they have formed the bulwark behind which rallied faltering hope, 
would be to fill a book with a long line of actions whose heroism con- 
sists in their gentleness. To this luxuriance of benevolent feeling, has 
been added a capacity for business that has made his benefactions 
possible, and social qualities that have made them doubly grateful. 

He was born in Bedford county, Tennessee, August 27, 1818. 
His father was a merchant, manufacturer and banker in Nashville. His 
own education was liberal, and such as his early judgment prompted, 
though acquired rather with a view to utility in commercial life than 
from any desire to enter a profession. Immediately after quitting 
school, he entered into the manufacture of iron at Cumberland, Ten- 
nessee, and in ,1842 came to St. Louis and opened an iron house as a 
branch of the Nashville house. 

In 1850, he went into the commission business, and i-emained in that 
until 1 86 1. 

When the Merchants' Bank, of which he is now president, organized 
in 1850, he was one of its promoters and in the first directory. This 
institution became the Merchants' National Bank in 1865, when it 
reorganized under the new law. It is as a banker that Mr. Yeatman is 
familiar to our people as a business man since 1861. 

After the unfortunate firing at Camp Jackson, on the memorable nth 
of May 1861, Mr. Yeatman was deputed by a meeting of some of our 



774 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

most loyal and honored citizens to proceed to Washington to express to 
Mr. Lincoln the feeling of St. Louis, and if possible, devise measures 
by which the danger of impending war upon the soil of Missouri might 
be averted. Mr. Hamilton R. Gamble joined him in Philadelphia, and 
they proceeded to Washington. Edward Bates entered heartily into 
the spirit of their mission, and endeavored to impress it upon the 
President. Other influences were, however, at work, and Mr. Yeat- 
man returned to St. Louis without having accomplished any substantial 
results. 

But a few weeks elapsed till the torch of war was lighted all over 
the State, and he then addressed himself to the merciful task of 
providing for the suffering that all knew would inevitably come. 
Throughout the war he was the guiding spirit of the Western Sani- 
tary Commission — its president, and chairman of its executive com- 
mittee. The good that it acccomplished, the suffering that that noble 
organization alleviated, are yet fresh in the minds of all who recollect 
that trying period. Yet the recital belongs rather to history than to 
biography. 

The Mercantile Library, an institution of which our people have just 
reason to be proud — a monument of their just appreciation of literature 
— knew him as one of its promoters. From its inception in 1848, he 
was its president for two years. The Blind Asylum owes a consid- 
erable part of its usefulness, if not its very existence, to the efforts he 
has made in its behalf. He was one of the first to urge its establish- 
ment, was its first president, and for twenty years it has been an object 
of his solicitude. He has had direct and active connection with about 
a score of charitable institutions. At the founding of Washington 
University, he interested himself in the bill which fixed its character, 
and is now one of its trustees. He attended the first public meeting- 
held here for the purpose of favoring the building of the Pacific Rail- 
road, gave it a warm support, and is now one of its directors. 

Although at times solicited to enter the arena of politics, he has 
carefully held aloof from any participation in political affairs, other 
than as a private citizen, and has, since the war, concentrated his busi- 
ness interests and efibrts in banking. 

Hon. John Bell, of Tennessee, one of the presidential candidates in 
the election that resulted in the elevation of Mr. Lincoln, was his 
mother's second husband. 

It is particularly interesting to note that the Freedmens' Bureau was 
organized and perfected upon the plan projected by Mr. Yeatman. 



JAMES E. YEATMAN. 775 

From being himself a slaveholder, he became one of the main bene- 
factors of the colored race. Mr. Lincoln was so pleased with the plan 
proposed by Mr. Yeatman, that he adopted it, and it was substantially 
the one put in operation. Mr. Lincoln offered Mr. Yeatman the post 
of Commissioner in that department, the position subsequently filled by 
General Howard, but he was unwilling to accept. It is not improbable 
that the semi-military character which attached to the Bureau had an 
influence in deterring him from immediate connection with it, though in 
its main features it had his warm sympathy and co-operation. 

Blessed with a temper singularly sweet, and a mind improved by 
contact with some of the most noted men of his time, and by home and 
foreign travel, it may be doubted whether, without a great emergency, 
Mr. Yeatman would ever have displayed his conspicuous capacity and 
aptitude for organization on a large scale, or have won a gratitude 
extending to so many hearts. But the troubled times came, and while 
men ofirded themselves for a conflict in which the end was not to be 
seen, the hostile armies, each filled with patriotism and devotion, found 
room for a new feeling of tenderness as they beheld his unselfish efforts. 
Those efforts, as before said, belong to history. The}^ distinguish Mr. 
Yeatman as among the first of the philanthropists of modern times, and 
throw a reflected lustre upon the city of his home. 



AVILLIAM DEAN. 



WILLIAM DEAN, one of the founders of the well-known iron 
house of Graff, Bennett & Co., of this city, was born in 
Alexandria, Virginia, October 31, 1801. His father, Joseph 
Dean, was a merchant of that place, and was of Scotch-Irish descent. 
His mother was Hannah Colomn, of Pennsylvania, and was of Hugue- 
not descent. 

The early education of William was conducted at the academies of 
x\lexandria and Georgetown. Besides the regular branch of English, 
William received education in classics and the higher branches of 
mathematics. At the above institutions, he was the early friend and 
playmate of the late General Robert E. Lee, where a feeling of 
friendship sprang up between them, wnich lasted through life. His 
admiration for the noble character of his early playmate has ever been^ 
and still continues, unbounded. 

When William had attained his eighteenth year, the family met with 
a great loss in the death of his father ; at that time he engaged himself 
as clerk in a shipping and commission house in Alexandria, which 
position he held for five years. In 1823 he removed to Prince William 
county, Virginia, to take charge of a mill left by his father, and 
superintended the running of the business for some eight years,, 
when he returned to Alexandria, and confined his attention to the 
flour business. 

In 1836, Mr. Dean, in a spirit of enterprise eminently worthy of the 
man, and with a desire of giving employment to a large class of the 
unemployed population of Alexandria, conceived the idea of establish- 
ing a shoe factory. He had no sooner formed his plans than he began 
to put them into execution, and in an incredible short space of time had 
the factory in running order. This business gave employment to about 
three hundred persons. He sent to the New England States, and 
procured competent workmen to oversee the different branches of the 
estabhshment. He placed at work about one hundred young appren- 
tices, male and female ; established a church and school for the sole use 
and benefit of the factory employees, and by this means made producers 
of a large army of people who, before, were nothing but consumers. 
At the end of four years, he sold out his interest in the factory to his 
partners, and removed to Baltimore, Maryland, where he became 



778 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

connected with the hardware house of Thomas & Co., with whom he 
remained eight years. 

In the fall of 1850 Mr. Dean came to St. Louis, and in connection 
with the late E. R. Violet, represented the house of Colman, Hailman 
& Co., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a large and influential iron estab- 
lishment, and under the name of E. R. Violet & Co., opened business 
on the levee, near Chestnut street. The firm thus remained until the 
death of Mr. Violet, in August 1854. ^^"- Dean continued the business 
under the old name for a few years, when he took as his partner Mr. 
Morris J. Lippman, who for a number of years had been book-keeper 
and confidential clerk of the establishment, changing the name of the 
firm to William Dean & Co. Thus matters continued until 1865, when 
the firm became Graft', Bennett & Co. ; Mr. Dean retiring from active 
business participation in the aftairs of the house, but still retaining his 
interest. During all these long j^ears, Mr. Dean was particularly 
noticeable for his strict attention to his business, a high sense of honor 
in -his commercial transactions, and a purity of life, private as well as 
public, well worthy the attention of all young merchants. 

He was twice married. The first time in 1832, to Mary Ann Hunton, 
of Virginia ; she died in 1834, leaving no family. His second marriage 
took place in 1836, to Miss Mary A. Myer, of Alexandria, who died in 
St. Louis in 1854, leaving one daughter who only survived her mother 
nine years ; she died in 1863, leaving Mr. Dean in his old age alone 
and childless. 

In politics, he started out in life as an Old-line Whig, but more 
recently became a staunch adherent of the Democratic party. He never 
ran for ofiice in his life, or indulged in any political aspirations. On 
one occasion, being solicited by his friends to allow his name to be used 
in a political campaign in Virginia for some public office, he firmly 
refused, remarking "that politics were only fit for idlers, triflers and 
rich men." A remark brimful of wit, wisdom and sound commercial 
sense. He was at one time a director in the Phoenix and Commercial 
Insurance Companies ; has invested largely in State lands, but has 
given his whole attention to the iron trade of the city. 

His active life is now over, and, satisfied with the mercantile honors 
already gained, he occupies a high standing as one of the retired 
merchants of St. Louis. A man of unblemished character through 
life ; a live, active, business man during his prime and early manhood, 
he has placed his name among the men whom our great commercial 
metropolis delights to honor. 



MORRIS J. LIPPMAN 



/ I VHE city of St. Louis is greatly indebted to many Germans, who 
_-L have from time to time settled here. With a perfect knowledge 
of the minutice of the counting-room, and trained at home to 
habits of industry, man}^ have raised themselves to eminence in their 
new fields of labor, and left enduring monuments of their business 
capacity, mercantile ability and public spirit. Among this class in this 
city is Morris J. Lippman, a member of the well-known house of Grafts 
Bennett & Co., a firm which deals largely in iron in St. Louis, and is 
extensively engaged in iron manufacture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

He was born February 14, 1825, in the town of Ladenburg, on the 
Neckar, Grand Duchy of Baden, where his father, Jacob Lippman, was 
a prominent merchant. After the death of his father, in 1837, the 
family removed to Mannheim on the Rhine, where young Morris 
received a very liberal commercial education, as well as a regular course 
of modern and ancient languages. 

At the age of fifteen he entered a large banking house in Mannheim, 
as an apprentice, and the expiration of his apprenticeship found him 
book-keeper and correspondent in one of the largest banking houses in 
Frankfort on the Main. Leaving here, he for some years turned his 
attention to the iron business, and acted as clerk in various establish- 
ments in Germany, England and New York. 

He came to St. Louis in 1849, and in 1850 obtained a situation as 
book-keeper in the house of E. R. Violet & Co., large iron dealers, 
and composed of E. R. Violet and William Dean. A perfect stranger, 
he presented himself to Mr. Dean, who being impressed with his general 
bearing, immediately gave him the employment he sought. His previ- 
ous knowledge of the iron business soon made him at home in his new- 
formed relations, and in a short space of time he was indispensable. 
His strict attention to business and his integrity in the daily routine of 
life, soon won for him the high esteem of his employers, who trusted to 
his sound judgment in most of the important transactions of the house. 

Upon the demise of Mr. Violet, in 1854, ^^'- Lippman was made a 
partner in the business, and the firm became WilHam Dean & Co. In 



780 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

i860, the firm of William Dean & Co. became connected with Grali, 
Bennett & Co., as agents; and a few years afterward, the firm name 
was changed to Graft', Bennet & Co., Mr. Lippman becoming a mem- 
ber of the firm, and retaining the active management of the business. 
Thus it will be seen that he has been connected with the business of this 
house almost from its incipiency. 

In addition to his career as a business man, Mr. Lippman has filled 
various offices of public trust. He has been president of the Traders' 
Bank ; a director in several insurance companies ; and is now president 
pro tern, of the Valley National Bank. In performing the duties of 
the above responsible positions, Mr. Lippman has received the uni- 
versal praise of his associates. In connection with the above organi- 
zations, his sound business sense and mercantile ability, as well as his 
unblemished integrity, have had not a little to do with their prosperit}'. 

The chief pride of his life, however, is his connection with the 
public schools of St. Louis. An ardent advocate of this admirable 
system of public education, Mr. Lippman has devoted some of his 
best years and energies in developing it, and bringing it to the present 
degree of perfection. He is at present one of the oldest members of 
the School Board, and for many years back has been one of its most 
active members. Some twelve years ago, together with Judge Irwin 
and Dr. Conzelman, he reported in favor of introducing the study of 
the German language into the schools, and although this movement 
was bitterly opposed, it eventually carried, and has since proven of 
immense usefulness in the community. For the elevation of the pub- 
lic schools he has worked most faithfully and continuously during a 
long period, and now^ has the satisfaction of knowing that he has been 
instrumental in rearing a scholastic system in St. Louis which will, for 
ages, remain a monument to his energy and penetrating judgment. 
His labors alone in this respect are sufficient to endear his name to 
the people of this city as long as the public schools last. 

In 1850, he was married to Miss Guida Hoen, of Baltimore, Mary- 
land, a lady in every way worthy of the name she now bears. 

Mr. Lippman is still in the prime of life, and notwithstanding his long 
connection with the School Board, by far the most important organiza- 
tion in the city, makes no pretensions to notoriety, but lives in a retired 
and modest way, rich in the regard and esteem of his fellows-citizens. 



DR. GARLAND HURT. 



^ JR. GARLAND HURT, recently appointed resident physician at 
-l-J the City Hospital, was born in Russell county, Virginia, on the 
27th day of December, 1819. His parents being poor, and 
having a large family, he was, at an early age, inured to habits of 
industry, and to hard labor in the fields ; and as opportunities for educa- 
tion were meagre, his early mental training was so much neglected that 
at the age of seventeen he was scarcely able to read the plainest com- 
position and type correctly. At nineteen, he entered Emory and Henry 
College as a student, where he remained about two years, with an 
intermission of six months. This was in the years 1839, 1840 and 
1841 ; and in 1842, while engaged in teaching school at Tazewell Court 
House, Virginia, he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Henry 
F. Peery, of that place, to which he continued to devote himself for 
about three years. 

In 1845, having severed his connection with his preceptor, and not 
being possessed of the means necessary to enable him to attend a 
course of medical lectures, he determined to enter at once into practice, 
and in this determination he was encouraged by his preceptor, who 
seemed to have every confidence in the ability of his pupil to succeed. 
So, in June of that year he removed to Johnson county, Kentucky, 
where, on his arrival, he found the inhabitants in much need of a 
physician, and ready to ofier him encouragement. This afforded him 
an opportunity of entering at once upon the duties and responsibilities 
of his chosen profession, not, however, without feelings of distrust and 
a full sense of the responsibility of the undertaking. 

We owe sometimes to accident, more than to merit, the degree of 
success which attends our lives. He had not been long settled in his 
new vocation, when an incident, or accident, brought him into rather 
more than merited notoriety, and gained for him that professional 
confidence and esteem which proved at once the herald of success. A 
citizen of the county sustained an injury in the foot and ankle, by 
jumping from a high embankment, and an amputation of the leg became 



782 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

necessaiy. Being a very poor man, he was not able to procure from a 
distance the services of an experienced surgeon. Dr. Hurt was called 
in, and though he had never witnessed an operation of the kind in his 
life, he undertook the operation, the difficulties of which w^ere enhanced 
by the fact that there were no surgical instruments in the county to 
which he could have access. These were, however, soon improvised, 
and proved quite sufficient for the occasion. An old carving knife put 
in order served the purpose of an amputating knife ; a small carpenter's 
saw was used for cutting the bones. A shoemaker's awl was substi- 
tuted in place of a tenaculum, while a stout bandanna handkerchief 
answered the purpose of a tourniquet. Notwithstanding the rudeness 
of the instruments and the inexperience of the operator, the patient did 
well, and made a speedy recovery. The Doctor says he regards this 
as one of the most important achievements of his life. About a year 
later he performed a second serious and delicate operation, the removal 
of a polypus from a female patient, which resulted in her restoration to 
health, and introduced him into a higher sphere of confidence and 
esteem. 

In 185 1, the citizens of Johnson and Floyd counties honored him 
with a seat in the House of Representatives of that State, which 
brought him into intimate association with quite a number of the promi- 
nent men of the State, of many of whom he still retains pleasant 
recollections. 

Hon. Thomas F. Marshall, with whom he served in the House of 
Representatives, was then in the zenith of his intellectual strength. On 
another part of the floor of the same House, sat Hon. George F. 
McKey, and in the speaker's chair, Hon. George F. Robinson, all men 
of a high order of talents, and though all diflering from the Doctor in 
politics, he accorded to them the respect and admiration due to intellect 
and genius. 

Among the visitors at the capital during the session, was the venerable 
Henry Clay, then Senator from that State, which afforded the Doctor 
his first and last opportunity of meeting this distinguished orator and 
statesman. Clay was stooped with age, and rapidly declining in health. 

Dr. Hurt was the author of a number of bills which passed both 
branches of the Assembly, one of which was an act providing for a 
registration of deaths, births and marriages, and which is still in force 
in that State. 

During his attendance on the State Legislature, the State Democratic 
Convention was convened at the capital. Dr. Hurt was instructed to 



GARLAND HURT, M.D. 783 

act as delegate for his counties, and had the honor of being chosen a 
member of the Committee on Resolutions, of which Hon. James 
Guthrie was chairman. 

In 1854, ^^'- H!urt received from President Pierce, the appointment 
of agent for the Indians in the Territory of Utah, and in January 1855, 
started from Independence, Missouri, upon the hazardous journey of 
crossing the Rocky Mountains in mid-winter. Traveling with the mail, 
he passed Fort Laramie on the 20th, where, leaving the mail coach, the 
mode of travel through the mountains was by mule and pack-saddle. 
He reached Salt Lake City on the night of the 5th of February, with 
his little party of hardy mountaineers, consisting of four men, all welL 

He had hitherto never allowed himself to be separated from the text- 
books of his chosen profession, nor to forget the fact that he was still 
a student of medicine ; but, in arranging his outfit for the plains, he 
found it impracticable to carry books, and on reaching Salt Lake City 
he found it equally inconvenient to procure such medical books as 
would enable him to continue his medical reading with profit. At the 
suggestion of Judge John F. Kinney, then Chief Justice of the Terri- 
tory, he took up a copy of Blackstone, and became so engrossed with 
the beauties of law that he entered upon a more extended course of 
reading, and at the October term of the court passed an examina- 
tion, and received a license to practice law in all the courts of the 
Territory. 

The Mormon people profess to be patriotic, and on some occa- 
sions are decidedly demonstrative in their professions of loyalty. The 
Fourth of July, 1855, was the occasion of quite a display of patri- 
otic enthusiasm. Dr. Hurt had the honor of being invited to take 
part in the exercises as one of the orators of the occasion, and 
im_proved the opportunity in an endeavor to impress the people with 
the dangers which might be apprehended from a too intimate blend- 
ing of the institutions of Church and State. The subject was a deli- 
cate one to discuss before a Mormon audience, and, while expecting 
to provoke criticism, he was somewhat surprised on being assured that 
his remarks had been well received. 

In the month of February 1856, Dr. Hurt had the honor of being 
chosen one of the delegates from Salt Lake county to a Constitu- 
tional Convention, to draft a constitution for the proposed new State of 
Deseret. This was a favorite scheme of the Mormon leaders, and one 
about which they manifested a good deal of anxiety, and the principal 
object in electing Dr. Hurt and Chief Justice Kinney to this convention 



7^4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Wcis, doubtless, conciliation. It had the desired effect so far as the 
Doctor and the Judge were concerned, for they both entered into the 
project with enthusiasm. 

In this convention, Dr. Hurt found himself associated with a number 
of the leaders of the Mormon hierarchy, who soon impressed him with 
the fact that they were men of thought, and in some things, not as 
visionary as people outside of Utah are in the habit of supposing. 

In the summer of 1856, while on a visit among the Indians in the 
valleys of the Humboldt and Carson rivers. Dr. Hurt spent a few days 
at the county seat of Carson, then a newly-organized county, embracing 
that portion of the Territory which has been subsequently organized 
into the State of Nevada. The United States District Court was in 
session, and Dr. Hurt was afforded an opportunity of indulging for the 
first time his newly-acquired privileges as a lawyer. 

The case involved about three thousand dollars under the mechanics' 
lien law. It had been tried in an inferior court, where, under a plea of 
fraud in settlement of accounts, a judgment setting the lien aside was 
rendered. In this state of the case the Doctor espoused the cause of 
his Gentile client, and succeeded in securing a verdict in his favor from 
a Mormon jury. At the close of the trial, he was gratified at receiving 
the congratulations of a large number of lawyers from California, who 
were present. 

On returning to Salt Lake City in the autumn of the same year, the 
Doctor became sensible of the fact that he was suspected b}- the Mor- 
mon authorities of not being in accord with them, in their views of the 
rights and duties of the citizens of a Territory under the Constitution 
of the United States ; and had included him in a list of Gentile officials 
for whom they had threatened to make the climate so hot that it would 
be impossible for them to live in it. 

The year 1857 was an eventful one in the life and history of Dr. 
Hurt, as it was also a crisis in the affairs of Utah. All the Government 
officials except himself had, under the Mormon system of menace and 
intimidation, left the country. It seemed that the Mormon leaders had 
determined, at all hazards, to rid themselves of the presence and 
annoyance of Gentile inffuence, and especially of those who occupied 
official positions. They complained of misrepresentation and malig- 
nant action on the part of the officials, and sought, under cover of such 
perversion, to rid themselves of the men who they imagined stood in 
the way of the absolutism which their theocracy aimed at. As their 
hierarchy was itself an experiment, they had no plan coherent and logi- 



GARLAND HURT, M.D. 785 

cal in all its details. Yet they were fixed in the purpose of ridding 
themselves of all extraneous influences, and in the carryin^^ out of their 
schemes, were more to be dreaded than if their plans had been more 
perfect. They had the fury, malignity and blindness of a mob, with- 
out the sense of responsibility that comes from thorough organization. 
They cultivated the friendship of the Indians, both for their own security 
and the strength that their alliance would give in case of a conflict with 
the authority of the United States. The news of the expedition against 
them roused them to madness ; the national ensign was torn down, and 
the flag of Deseret raised in its stead ; martial law was declared ; the 
entire militia enrolled ; the work of poisoning the minds of the Indians 
was continued. The Mormon leaders were confident that they could 
combine the Indians in a general war under their auspices and leader- 
ship. 

It was impossible for the Doctor to remain an indifferent spectator 
while these events were transpiring around him. His official position, 
his sense of duty, and his habit of thought, all impelled him to use 
his best efforts to thwart the Mormon designs, regardless of the per- 
sonal risk such a course involved. 

The Doctor took up his position in an Indian village for greater 
security, and also that he might employ himself in instructing the 
savages in the arts of civilization. 

In compliance with the Mormon invitation, a general Indian council 
was held near the city of Provo, at which it was thought by the Mor- 
mons that the}^ could secure the pledge of the tribes to a war with the 
United States. This plot had nearly been consummated, when it came 
to the knowledge of Dr. Hurt. He explained the position to them, 
and offered himself as a hostage for the peaceful intentions of the 
troops toward them. When the council was held, the session was a 
prolonged and boisterous one, and ended in the rejection of the Mor- 
mon overtures. The Mormons were also given to understand that 
this action was taken through the advice of their friend and agent, 
Dr. Hurt. This so exasperated the Mormons that they, in council, 
determined to rid themselves in a summary manner of an obstacle so 
formidable to their plans, and laid a plot to carry him off' from his pro- 
tectors, the Indians, and to take the risk of pacifying the Indians after- 
ward. The scheme was frustrated by the natural alertness and good 
offices of the Indians at the time of the attempt. The party of mounted 
Mormons sent to abduct and kill him were discovered by the Indians 
as the}^ approached, one Sunday morning, in time for the Doctor to 

50 



786 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

mount a horse, brought him by an Indian boy, ready saddled, and 
leave the village. Then followed an exciting chase, in which, partly 
by hard riding and partly by stratagem, he eluded his foes, although 
part of the time they were in plain sight. At two o'clock of that night 
he had shaken himself loose from his crafty pursuers, and felt safe to 
throw himself on the grass to sleep, and to realize the luxury of secure 
repose, with but a single blanket to protect him from the sharp moun- 
tain air. The next morning he was joined by a small party of Indians 
from the village, who had followed his trail. His journey was now 
continued eastward until he reached the headquarters of the army then 
on its way to Utah, under the command of General Albert Sidney 
Johnston. 

He found the army at South Pass, on the night of the 24th of 
October, after much privation, anxiety and fatigue, having traveled on 
the day previous about forty miles, without anything to eat, except 
about an ounce of raw beef-tallow at daylight. 

He then accompanied the troops to Fort Bridger, where the latter 
went into winter quarters about the first of December. But a few days 
before reaching that place they encountered a snow storm, in which 
fully one-half their stock of horses, mules, and a large number of cattle 
belonging to sutlers and traders, were frozen to death. After remain- 
ing with the army at Fort Bridger about a month. Dr. Hurt again 
separated himself from them, and, in company with five Indian youths, 
re-crossed the Green River Mountains, starting about the middle of 
January 1858, and reaching the Uinta Valley, about a hundred miles 
southeast of Bridger, in the latter part of February, where they passed 
the remainder of the winter, subsisting alone upon such supplies of food 
as they were able to procure by hunting. This subjected them at times 
to great privation and suffering, and, as in the months of March and 
April, game became very scarce, they were obliged to subsist some- 
times for days upon roots alone. Dr. Hurt exposed himself to consid- 
erable peril on this trip, and on one occasion, barely escaped being 
buried in a snow-drift, while passing through a deep gorge of the 
mountains, endeavoring to reach an elevated plateau. 

The object of their expedition at this season of the year was a secret 
one, and was undertaken at the earnest request of General Johnston, 
who had dispatched Captain R. B. Marcy in charge of a small party of 
picked men, to New Mexico, for the purpose of purchasing horses, 
mules and beef cattle, and moving them as early and rapidly as possible 
in the spring, in the direction of Fort Bridger, to recruit the army 



GARLAND HURT, M . D . 787 

stock and to furnish provisions. But this expedition had not been out 
more than a month or six weeks, when it was reported through some 
Delaware half-breed Indians, who had been carrying on a considerable 
trade between the Mormons and the Sho-sho-nees about Fort Hall, that 
the Mormons had knowledge of this expedition, and were organizing a 
force of three hundred men, well equipped, to pass out through a 
southern route and intercept Marcy and his stock, make prisoners of 
the Captain and his party, and turn the stock over to the Quartermaster 
and Commissary of the Mormon army, and leave the General and his 
little army at Fort Bridger to starve for want of supplies, and unable to 
move for want of stock. 

Impressed with the truth of the intelligence received, and believing 
in the possibility of the Mormons being able to carry their proposed 
expedition into effect, the General became very much concerned for the 
safety of Captain Marc3^ Dr. Hurt, in conversation with an officer, 
expressed the opinion that the Mormon expedition could be frustrated. 
On the next morning a messenger came to his tent to say that the 
General wished to see him. He stated his views to the commander, 
who seemed to think them feasible and offered about the only hope of 
safety. But he could trust no one but the Doctor himself with their 
execution, and hence he insisted upon his undertaking it. The plan 
succeeded, though it had been intended, if the Mormons came out, to 
stampede their horses some night and leave them all afoot ; but when 
a vague rumor got afloat through straggling Indians that Dr. Hurt was 
in Uinta Valley, which was known to be a favorite winter resort for 
Indians, the object of his visit and the strength of his escort were so 
exaggerated, that the Mormons became alarmed and abandoned the 
expedition. Dr. Hurt and his little party returned to headquarters of 
the army about the first of May, worn out by fatigue and exposure, to 
learn that great anxiety had been felt for their safety, and to find the 
army upon the verge of starvation, having been reduced to the lowest 
rations capable of sustaining life, and subsisting partly upon wild roots 
and plants ; several of the men had been fatally poisoned by gathering 
and eating roots while out on picket duty. But they were soon relieved 
of their famine by the arrival of Colonel Cooke from Fort Laramie 
with a number of beef cattle, and in a few days later, by the arrival of 
Captain Marcy from New Mexico with a large drove of cattle, mules 
and horses. 

The army entered Salt Lake about the ist of July, and passing over 
the southern divide, established Camp Floyd in Cedar county, about 



788 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

forty miles south of Salt Lake City, and immediately west of Lake 
Utah ; and the Doctor returned to his Indian reservation on the opposite 
side of this lake, which he had so hastily abandoned in September of 
the preceding year, and resumed his labor of civilizing the Indians by 
instilling into their minds a love of domestic life, habits of industry, 
and a knowledge of agriculture. He continued in the service till the 
autumn of 1859, when he was relieved by Colonel Andrew J. Hum- 
phreys, of Indiana, and returning to the States, repaired immediately to 
Washington City, where he passed a whole year in the tedious and 
unpleasant business of settling accounts with the Government. 

While sojourning at the national capital, he made the acquaintance 
of many distinguished citizens and statesmen, both of the city and 
country, and among others, a leading belle, who had somehow learned 
something of his adventures in the West, and paid him the compli- 
ment of telling him that, but for his modesty, he might have been the 
lion of Washington during his stay in the cit}^ 

In the spring of 1861, Dr. Hurt came to St. Louis and organized the 
late business firm of Hurt, Helmers & Voorhis, which he left to the 
entire control of his partners, and though it flourished for a time, it 
proved a rather unfortunate business connection. 

In the autumn of 1862, Dr. Flurt entered the St. Louis Medical 
College as a student of medicine, and graduated from that institution in 
the spring of the following year, preparatory to returning again to the 
practice of his chosen profession. 

In the winter of 1865, during the great petroleum excitement in 
Pennsylvania, the Laclede Oil Company of St. Louis was organized, 
of which Dr. Hurt, although owning but a single share of the stock 
(five hundred dollars), was made president. As the organization 
of the company had been effected chiefly through the exertions of 
Mr. Robert S. Voorhis, who was elected secretary and treasurer, the 
management of the company's aflairs was intrusted entirely to him. 
This likewise proved a disastrous failure. Of the thirteen thousand 
dollars which had been subscribed and paid in, every dollar was 
expended in the purchase of machinery, and in boring for oil which 
was never reached in paying quantities. 

In 1868 Dr. Hurt was chosen by the citizens of the Eighth ward to 
represent them in the lower house of the Twenty-fifth General Assem- 
bly of Missouri, in which he served two sessions, and was the author 
of several important bills, which, he regrets, failed to pass. 

It was in the adjourned session of this Assembly that the fate of the 



GARLAND HURT, M.D. 789 

State University was decided, by attaching thereto the State Agricul- 
tural College and School of Mines. The proposition to consolidate 
these interests gave rise to protracted and often animated discussion, 
in which Dr. H. participated as an earnest advocate for consolidation. 

In 1873 he was elected president of the Susquehanna and Billings 
Land Company of Southwest Missouri, and in 1874, president of the 
St. Louis Medical Society. 

In February 1875, he yielded to the solicitations of numerous poli- 
tical friends, and accepted the nomination of the Democratic party for 
the Constitutional Convention, but was defeated by Colonel Thomas 
T. Gantt, an Independent. In June of the same year he was elected 
bv the Board of Health to the responsible position which he now occu- 
pies, that of resident-physician to the City Hospital. 

In politics he has always been a Democrat, and believes as firmly in 
the sovereignty of the States as in the sovereignty of the United States ; 
that coercion is unconstitutional and incompatible with the existence of 
a free State or a free people. He is not anunfrequent contributor to the 
public journals on various political and literary subjects. A clear and 
logical thinker, with a mind singularly free from bias, he is a convinc- 
ing and graceful writer and speaker. Exceptionally pure in life and 
thought, his temperament is joyous, and his manners dignified, though 
gracious. The marks of confidence and esteem that have been 
bestowed upon him, by his profession and by the people of St. Louis, 
could have had no more worthy recipient. 



MEREDITH MARTIN, M.D. 



MC/ROMINENT among the medical men of St. Louis, who, during 
JL a long and useful lifetime, have in no ordinary degree enjoyed 
the respect and confidence of their fellow-citizens, is to be found 
Dr. Meredith Martin, who, although for some years out of active 
practice, is still held in the highest regard by the profession, as well as 
the public at large. 

Dr. Martin was born in Madison county, near Richmond, Ken- 
tucky, December 13, 1805. Both his father and mother were Virginians 
by birth, and of the most respected families of the Old Dominion. His 
education in Kentucky was but slight, and was confined entirely to the 
rudimentary branches of English, such as the county schools afford. 

In 1816 his father, accompanied by his family, removed to Boone 
county, Missouri, and was a pioneer of that section of the State. Here 
he purchased land and lived, until his death in 1850, one of the most 
respected and useful citizens of Boone county. 

Meredith was the fourth of nine children, and assisted his father in 
the cultivation of the farm, attending school during the winter season, 
improving his mind and storing up such knowledge as might prove 
advantageous in the great battle of life to come in after years. 

Thus passed his early years, until in 1826 he came to St. Louis and 
began the study of his profession under the late honored Dr. B. G. 
Farrar, a man still remembered for his scholarly attainments and 
professional skill, and the first American physician who located west of 
the Mississippi River. Under his admirable instruction he remained 
four years, and now that the grave has closed above his old preceptor, 
and the snows of many yccirs encircle his own brow, he seems to take 
especial delight in referring to the uniform kindness and painstaking of 
his first teacher. 

After four years of instruction under Dr. Farrar, young Martin went 
to Philadelphia, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 
1832, when, under an appointment from General Cass, he visited the 
Indian country for the purpose of vaccinating the Sioux Indians. Here 



792 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

he remained the entire summer and fall, fulfilling his mission, and 
saving from the ravages of that most terrible scourge many an aborigine 
of the West. 

Returning to St. Louis in November, he formed a copartnership with 
his old friend and tutor. Dr. Farrar, w^hich continued until the latter 
retired from active practice, some three years afterward. Dr. Martin 
soon found himself in command of a large and lucrative practice, to 
which he never failed to give his entire attention. His knowledge of 
his profession, his skill in practice, together with his well-known integ- 
rity in every relation of life, soon stamped him as no ordinary man, and 
placed him in the front rank of the physicians of the day. His whole 
soul, his entire energy, were bound up in the profession of medicine, 
and while other men were flitting away the years of life in the vain 
pursuit of empty honors in politics. Dr. Martin was moving steadily 
along, healing the sick and wounded, and bringing blessings in every 
path of life his professional duties called him. 

Upon the establishment of McDowell's College, a professor's chair 
was placed at his disposal. This, however, he saw fit to decline, feel- 
ing that the duties incident to the position of professor in an institution 
of learning such as this renowned school of medicine was, would 
demand too much of his time, and necessitate, to a certain degree, a 
neglect of his large practice. Such was the estimation in which he 
was held by his brethren of the same profession, that on three different 
occasions he was made president of the St. Louis Medical Society, a 
position he filled with honor and credit. 

He took no part in the political dissensions which agitated the people 
during his earlier years, but never failed to cast his vote as his reason 
dictated ; and although on more than one occasion, solicited to take part 
in municipal affairs, he ever refused, and under no consideration would 
he allow his name to be used in connection with a candidacy for any 
public office. 

When the war cloud burst over the land, the storm found him a 
Union man. Although a strong admirer of Southern institutions, he 
did not believe in the disruption of the American Union. He had a 
firm belief in gradual emancipation, believing that the manumission of 
the slaves would redound more to the benefit of the Southern white 
man than the slave himself. 

During the continuance of the war, while he took no active part on 
either side, and while the military prisons of the city were over-crowded 
with unfortunate men who had forfeited their liberty by their adherence 



MEREDITH MARTIN, M.D. 793 

to the Confederate cause, Dr. Martin did much to alleviate their suffer- 
ings, and ameliorate their terrible condition, using his influence with the 
authorities for their release, and advancing them money to carry them 
to their homes : and be it to their honor recorded, that out of the large 
amount thus advanced, he never lost but one dollar and a half. Many 
are still living in the city and throughout the State, who were at this 
period inmates of the McDowell's College or Myrtle Street prisons, 
who well recollect his uniform kindness in these dark hours of prison 
life. 

In 1838 Dr. Martin married Miss Elizabeth M. Gay, daughter of 
John H. Gay, Esq., of St. Louis, who died in 1862, leaving him six 
children. His second marriage took place in 1864, when he was 
united in matrimony to Mrs. Ellen M. Tracy, daughter of George 
Morton, Esq., also of St. Louis. His sons are well known in St. 
Louis as men of unblemished integrity and character, and occupy 
positions of honor and trust in the community. 

As has been stated, some years since Dr. Martin retired from active 
practice, at the anxious solicitations of his famil3S who felt alarm at 
his increasing years ; yet this does not hinder him from taking a heart- 
felt interest in everything which transpires in relation to the profession 
which claimed the prime of his honorable manhood. Deeply read in 
all matters relating to the practice of medicine, he possesses a remark- 
able power of reaching the seat of disease, and immediately grappling 
with its causes. In his practice he has ever been one of the most suc- 
cessful in the West, and his labors, scattered over a long series of 
years, did not fail to bring him a handsome competence, which is 
always in store for well-directed ability and industry. Endowed by 
nature with a remarkably fine constitution, he is still a hearty, hale 
man, with as much vitality and elasticity as the majority of men at the 
age of fifty. Socially, as well as pubhcly, he occupies a high position 
among his fellow-citizens, who have never failed to recognize his many 
admirable qualities. 



JOHN R. LIONBERGER. 



IF the merits or demerits of a citizen are to be judged by the number 
of pubhc positions he has worthily filled, or by the quiet, generous 
and liberal spirit he has privately exercised in his endeavors to add 
to the material wealth and prosperity of the community in which he 
resides, then, indeed, is John R. Lionberger justly entitled to a 
strong position in the esteem and regard of the people of St. Louis ; 
for, retiring and unobtrusive as he is in all his transactions, he is, never- 
theless, one of the men at present living who have been instrumental in 
securing to St. Louis the proud title of the commercial metropolis of 
the Mississippi Valley. 

John Robert Lionberger was born in Virginia, August 22, 1829. 
His father, who was engaged in merchandising, was of German descent 
as the name would indicate ; his mother was of English-Scotch ancestry. 
The family removed from Virginia to Missouri in 1837, and settled in 
Boonville, Cooper county, where his father again embarked in com- 
mercial enterprises. Up to the age of sixteen, young John R. had 
attended Kemper's Academy, a somewhat noted institution of learning 
in Boonville, where he received the rudiments of his education. He 
then attended the State University at Columbia, where he began a 
course of classics and the higher branches of mathematics. 

Upon completing his education, his tastes led him to enter the mer- 
cantile world in search of fortune, which he did in Boonville, but, like 
other young men of energy and enterprise, who require a wide field for 
business operations, came to St. Louis in 1855, and established the 
wholesale boot and shoe house of Lionberger & Shields, on Main 
street. This firm continued in existence for some two years, when 
Mr. Shields sold his interest to his partner, and Mr. Lionberger con- 
tinued the business in his own name. Subsequently, the firm became 
J. R. Lionberger & Co., and continued so until 1867, when Mr. 
Lionberger retired, and left a most flourishing business to his junior 
partners ; but he did not retire from active participation in the great 
business transactions of the city. 

From the organization of the old Southern Bank, in 1857, Mr. 
Lionberger had been one of its most active directors, and for several 



796 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

years its vice-president. The Third National Bank took the place o£ 
that financial institution in 1864, and in 1867 he became its president. 
He still holds this honorable and responsible position, and with it the 
unlimited confidence of his associates. 

He became a director in the North Missouri Railroad at a period in 
its history when the affairs of the corporation, owing to different causes, 
were desperate indeed ; and with others aided materially in its extension 
and completion to Kansas City and the Iowa State line, and the con- 
struction of the bridge across the Missouri River at St. Charles, thus 
undoubtedly making it what it is to-day — on a fair way to be one of 
the most successful railroad enterprises in the West. 

From its incipiency, he has been an active director in the Illinois & 
St. Louis Bridge Company, and was a member of the Executive and 
Construction Committees. 

In all matters relating to the public welfare, and in all enterprises 
undertaken for the ultimate benefit of the city, Mr. Lionberger has 
always taken the liveliest interest, generally contributing most liberally 
toward any object that was likely to benefit the city of his adoption. 

He is a director in the Safe Deposit Company ; also a director in the 
new Chamber of Commerce Association, and a member of the Building 
Committee. His connection with the Board of Trade is marked by 
the most pleasing associations. He was a delegate to the Boston 
Convention of the National Board of Trade ; also to the New Orleans 
Convention, and was chairman of the St. Louis delegation to the latter. 
These facts merely go to show the high esteem in which he is held by 
his fellow-citizens, and the unbounded confidence they are pleased to 
place in him. 

Mr. Lionberger was married in 1852 to Miss Margaret M. Clarkson, 
of Columbia, Missouri, a lady held in the highest estimation by a large 
circle of acquaintances, for her many estimable qualities. His family 
consists of four children. 

As a public-spirited man, Mr. Lionberger occupies a prominent place 
among the leading citizens of St. Louis. He has invested in almost 
every public enterprise of his da}^ 

In private, as well as in pubhc life, he is much admired for his 
numerous good qualities of head and heart ; his pure and unblemished 
character, and his social, genial and unassuming nature, making him 
an acceptable visitor in the very best circles. He is still in the prime of 
life, in the full enjoyment of all his intellectual faculties, and it is to be 
hoped, with a long course of usefulness before him. 



HENRY B. BELT. 



'MONG the oldest and most respected citizens of St. Louis, whose 

manhood has been interwoven with the great pubHc projects 

which have gone to make this city metropoHtan in its character, 

is Henry B. Belt, who has seen St. Louis grow from a town of five 

thousand inhabitants to its present gigantic proportions. 

Mr. Belt was born February 17, 1816, in Winchester, Virginia, and 
is a descendant of one of the good old families of the Old Dominion, 
whose sons and daughters are to be found in all parts of the great 
West, filling honorable positions in every walk in life. While yet an 
infant, his parents removed to Alabama, thence to Tennessee, and 
finally, in February 1830, came to St. Louis. 

Young Henry, whose education had received proper attention, 
entered the office of Archibald Gamble, the clerk of the Circuit Court, 
and ex-officio recorder, and at a period when Peter Furguson was 
deputy clerk for Gamble. In 1837, he was appointed by the County 
Court a Justice of the Peace, which position he filled but a short time 
when, in 1837, ^^ was made Deputy SherilT under Marshall Brotherton. 
This office he filled with satisfaction to all concerned for four years 
under Brotherton, four years under General Milburn, two years under 
Samuel Conway, and finally, two years under Louis Labeaume, when in 
August 1850, and at the termination of Labeaume's term of office, he 
was elected Sherift' of St. Louis county, filling this important post until 
August 1852. 

During this long period of his connection with the Sherift^'s office, he 
entered into- all the existing political contests, and had ample oppor- 
tunities for becoming acquainted with every locality in the county, and 
thus became thoroughly familiar with the value of every foot of ground 
in the county. In 1853, he formed a partnership in the real estate busi- 
ness with John G. Priest, a firm known throughout the county for 
twenty years as Belt & Priest. It is impossible to calculate the amount 
of business transacted by this firm during its existence, and the records 
show that these irentlemen have made more sub-divisions and sales than 
all the other real estate agents in the city. 



798 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Mr. Belt has been prominent in municipal affairs, being twice elected 
to the City Council, and filling important positions upon the Board of 
Health, Home of Refuge, and other bodies of a public nature. He 
filled one term as Judge of the County Court, and was an unyielding 
advocate of the railroad system of the State. For several years he 
was a member of the board of directors of the Iron Mountain Railroad, 
and was vice-president of the same road for two years, where his busi- 
ness enterprise and energy were fully appreciated. 

In 1873, the firm of Belt & Priest was dissolved, when Mr. Belt 
opened his present real estate office, at No. 215 North Sixth street, 
under the name of Henry B. Belt & Co. His vast and varied expe- 
rience in real estate matters in St. Louis as deputy and Sheriff of the 
county ; his long years as the chief agent in the city, and his knowledge 
of localities and values, all combine to make him the most expert judge 
of property in St. Louis. His first connection with real estate was in 
1835, ^^^ from that period down to the present time, the records of the 
county show that no man in that line of business has handled more 
property in the way of transfers and sales than himself. 

Mr. Belt, in connection with Samuel D. Wells, was the original 
founder of the St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Company, as the 
records of the corporation will show. 

No man stands higher in his particular line of business, and in 
cases where a nicety of judgment is required, Mr. Belt's opinion is 
invaluable and generally looked upon as decisive. His long residence 
in St. Louis, his honorable and upright course in every relation of life, 
have not only made him one of our most respected citizens, but have 
surrounded him with hosts of friends, whose respect and esteem he 
possesses in a more than ordinary degree. His industry has always 
secured him a lucrative business, which has brought him a competency 
as its just reward. Notwithstanding his years and the immense amount 
of labor he has performed during his active career, he is still vigorous 
and active, and goes through the general routine of every day life with 
remarkable ease. In real estate circles his name is as familiar as 
"household words," and his opinions are invariably quoted as a stand- 
ard authority. 



WILLIAM F. SAVITZLER. 



MR. SWITZLER was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, March 
i6, 1819. His father, Simeon Switzler, soon after moved to 
Nicholas ville, Jessamine county, where he was sent to a private 
school of which Miss Eliza Rohan Buskett was teacher. Miss Buskett 
died in St. Louis, Missouri, at the residence of her nephew, James L. 
Buskett, December 13, 187 1, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. 

The paternal grand-parents of Colonel Switzler were natives of 
Switzerland, and emigrated to Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg ; subse- 
quently to Orange county, Virginia, where Simeon Switzler was born. 

In 1826, the subject of this sketch moved with his father's family to 
Fayette, Howard county, Missouri, where they continued to reside until 
1832, when they moved to a farm in that county, midway between 
Fayette and Boonville. Here he remained about nine years, alternately 
attending school at Mt. Forest Academy, and aiding in the cultivation 
of the farm. 

Encouraged by his father and mother, he early developed a taste for 
literary pursuits and a thirst for knowledge ; read and composed much, 
and prosecuted his studies in school and at home with unflagging indus- 
try. He took much interest, and a prominent part for several winters, 
in a debating society organized at the Academy, and here acquired 
that aptitude for popular oratory which has distinguished his career as 
a public man. 

Adopting the law as his profession, in 1839 ^"^ 1840 he prosecuted 
his law studies at home, enjoying occasional instruction from his early 
friends. Judge Abiel Leonard and Colonel Jo. Davis, of the neighboring 
town of Fayette. He had but few books, but these he studied 
thoroughly, passing no word without understanding its meaning. In 
1840, he took great interest in the election of General Harrison, writing 
a series of articles in favor of his election, for the Boonslick Times, a 
Whig paper then published in Fayette. 

During the winter of 1840-41 he was kindly tendered the use, if he 
would come to Columbia, of the law library of Hon. James S. Rollins^ 



800 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

which he accepted, and reached Columbia on Januar}^ 8, 1841, where 
he has ever since resided. 

For several months he paid his board by discharging the duties of 
book-keeper in one of the stores of Columbia, all the while occupying, 
free of rent, the law office of M^jor Rollins. In April 1841, he 
delivered a public address in Columbia, on the occasion of the death, 
and in commemoration of the life and services, of General Harrison. 
In 1841, he became editor, at a small salary, of the Patriot, a Whig 
paper then published in Columbia. He did not, however, neglect his 
law studies, and in Ma}^ 1842, was admitted to the Bar. In Jul}^ 1842, 
lie retired from the Patriot, but in December following, he consented 
to purchase a half interest in the paper and become again its editor. 
In January 1843, he changed its name to the Missouri Statesman, which 
paper he has conducted continuously since that time, a period of more 
than thirt3^-two years. With the single exception of the St. Louis 
Pe^tiblican , the Statesman has survived all its contemporaries of 1843, 
and with this exception is the oldest paper in the State. 

The Statesman has been Mr. Switzler's life Avork, and is a monument 
of his enterprise, energy and talents. No weekly newspaper in the 
State wields a greater influence over the public mind, or has more 
largely contributed to the substantial prosperity of the State and of the 
town and county in which it is published ; and no editor in Missouri 
enjoys a more enviable reputation, or is better known personall}" and 
professionally. In fact, the Missouri Statesman is an individuality, a 
personation, receiving and imparting the impress of its editor. It is 
regarded by its contemporaries as a model newspaper — enterprising, 
progressive, alive to every good work, remarkably accurate in its facts, 
and conducted with acknowledged ability and fairness to all. 

In August 1843, Colonel Switzler was married, in Columbia, to Miss 
Mary Jane, a daughter of the late John B. Royall, formerly of Halifax- 
county, Virginia, and in 1845 he retired from the Bar. 

In 1846, 1848 and in 1856, he was elected to the Legislature from 
Boone county ; in i860, was a delegate to the Baltimore Whig 
National Convention, which nominated Bell and Everett, and it was 
on his motion in that body that Mr. Everett was nominated by 
acclamation for the vice-presidency. He was a candidate for presi- 
dential elector on the Bell-Everett ticket, in i860, and made an 
extensive canvass. He was a Union man during the war, conservative 
but decided, supported General McClellan for the presidenc}^ in 1864, 
Seymour in 1868, and Greeley in 1872. He was a delegate to the 



W. F. SWITZLER. 8oi 

State Constitutional Convention in 1865, and took a very active and 
prominent part in that body, against the disfranchising and other 
extreme measures proposed and adopted by the Radical majority. 
Since 1863 he has actively co-operated with the Democratic party. 

In 1866 and 1868, he was nominated by the Democratic conventions 
in his district, for Congress ; made an extensive canvass, and met his 
opponents in joint discussion in every county ; and notwithstanding 
the wholesale disfranchisement of his political friends, was each time 
elected. But a partisan Secretary of State refused him the certificate 
and gave it to the defeated candidates ; whereupon Colonel Switzler 
contested their election, and with an industry which knows no flagging, 
and with marked ability, prosecuted the contests before the United 
States House of Representatives. The Election Committee of the 
House, although composed largely of Republicans, reported in his 
favor in both cases ; yet the House voted down the reports of its own 
committees, and awarded the seats to the sitting members. He 
addressed the House on both occasions in speeches of great power 
and eloquence, which were extensively published, and attracted much 
attention throughout the Union. 

In 1875, Mr. Switzler was elected a member of the Convention to 
form a new constitution, and took a leading part in the important 
debates and deliberations of that body. To him, as chairman of the 
Committee on Education, the State is deeply indebted for the admirable 
article on that subject, in the new Constitution. His speech in expo- 
sition and defense of it when it was reported to the Convention, was 
among the ablest and most exhaustive delivered during the session. His 
large experience in public life, great knowledge of political questions, 
familiarity with parliamentary law, and ability as a debater and writer, 
gave him a prominent position among the members of the Convention. 

This is but a brief outline of the life and character of Colonel 
Switzler. He belongs to that class of self-made men who have won 
honorable distinction by dint of a never-flagging industry and a perfect 
self-reliance. Possessed of larger opportunities, there is no post of 
honor that would be out of his reach in our country. Limited in his 
advantages of education, to the common schools which the times 
afforded, and to the pursuit of studies at home, and by his energy and 
resolution surmounting every impediment that lay in his pathwa}", he 
has attained an enviable and imposing position in society. 

Distinguished alike for his liberal views, and energetic action and 
influence as a journalist, in pushing forward those great questions of 



802 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

public policy which have agitated the American public mind for the 
last quarter of a century, he may be justly ranked among the public 
benefactors of our country. He has lived to see that his labors in the 
cause of progress and reform have not been in vain. And still in the 
pride of vigorous manhood, with a constitution unimpaired, and free 
from those vices which frequentl}^ destroy the usefulness of public men, 
he is destined still further to labor for the advancement of those opin- 
ions and principles, upon the success of which greatly depend the 
peace, prosperity and growth of our country. To his honor be it also 
written, that although ever surrounded by temptation, he never in his 
life tasted a drop of intoxicating liquor. He has been, from his young- 
manhood, a steady and unflinching advocate of total abstinence, and all 
those agencies tending to elevate the social and moral condition of men. 
Conservative without tameness, progressive without impatience or 
violence, acting alwa3^s with foresight and intelligence, he belongs to 
that class of public men in whose hands, and to w^hose guidance, the 
people must look for the preservation and safety of our country and its 
institutions. 



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JOHN MAGAA^IRE. 



JOHN MAGWIRE is well-known throughout the United States, 
among the reading public, as one of the leading representatives 
of what is known as the Labor-reform movement. Though his 
labors in that direction have perhaps secured him a larger hearing than 
he has had upon some other questions of public polic}^ his connection 
with the organization seems rather incidental to his views. Mr. Magwire 
has not gone out of his way to meet the labor reformers, or adapted his 
opinion to tenets already laid down. On the contrary, the reformers 
found Mr. Magwire the champion of principle, and the advocate of a 
polity so fully in consonance with their aims, that he became the expo- 
nent of some of their leading principles. 

Aside from an active and successful life in the conduct of his per- 
sonal affairs, Mr. Magwire has given much deep and careful attention 
to the social and political problems crowding upon us, and has made 
public the solutions at which he has arrived. These bear evidence of 
deep research and close acquaintance with their subjects. 

However untimely it might be to canvass and discuss opinions in this 
connection, it is not too much to say, that his published views upon the 
rights of the citizen in the soil, and upon the currency question, have 
received the indorsement of many of tlj'e brightest intellects in this 
country, and have not as yet been shown unsound in any particular. 

Too many in this country have adopted the title of reformers who are 
simply agitators. Not so Mr. Magwire. He would carefully conserve 
every vested interest. He would begin to build without demolishing — 
providing for the future while respecting the past. Too able and too 
just for blind partisanship, his schemes do not look to benefiting any 
class' at the expense of another. Positive, able and fluent, he is an 
antagonist not to be despised, and an ally who contributes as much 
power as can attach to any single individual. His ancestry was not of 
the sort that compromised without most cogent reasons, and in this 
respect, at least, he is entirely like them. 

His paternal grandfather, Bartholomew Magwire, came to America 



804 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

from Ireland about the 3'ear 1735. In the subsequent wars between 
the Enghsh colonies and the French and Indians, he served in the army 
of General Braddock, in the militia under the command of (Colonel) 
George Washington. His original discharge, dated December 1758, 
sets forth that "Bartholomew Magwire, having served a full term in the 
Pennsylvania militia, is this day discharged." 

His maternal grandfather, Michael Magwire, was a captain in the 
Revolutionary War. In the year 1788, he emigrated with his family 
from the neighborhood of Taneytown, Maryland, to a place in the 
Alleghany Mountains, which became known as Magwire's Settlement. 
The town of Loretto, in Cambria county, now occupies the site. 

His father, Michael Magwire, was born in the State of Delaware, in 
May 1768, and at the age of ten years was carried by his parents to the 
Valley of the Juniata, settling at a point now contained in Huntington 
county. He also served in the Revolutionary War in the Pennsylvania 
militia. He inherited the farm upon which his father, Bartholomew 
Magwire, had settled in 1771, and resided there until his death in 1855. 
Even in the closing days of his life, when he was eighty-eight years of 
age, his memory was unclouded and his faculties singularl}^ strong. 
Shortly before his death, he was enabled to communicate to the histo- 
rian of the Juniata Valley the main facts and incidents upon which is 
founded "Jones' History of the Juniata Valley." 

The historian, Mr. Jones, states that although Mr. Magwire was on 
his death bed, he had the most wonderful memory of any man he ever 
knew. "His memor}^ was as true as the needle to the pole, and he 
recollected days and dates with an accuracy that astonished me," and 
when I was leaving him, he took my hand and said, "my young friend, 
this is the last narrative I will ever make. My mind is yet clear, my 
lungs are sound, but the powers of life are giving away, and in a few 
days my body will go back to the clay. I have endeavored to fulfill 
the duties required by the law of my being. I have obeyed the laws of 
God and man. I have always respected the latter, and paid homage 
to the former, and for the future, I have nothing to fear." The histo- 
rian further remarked, "that the man had never lived who could say 
that Michael Magwire had ever wronged him." 

This then was the priceless legacy that the father left his children, a 
legacy more highly prized by his son, and more carefully guarded, 
than anything else he could have bequeathed. 

John Magwire, the subject of the present sketch, was born on the 
old homestead in Huntington county, Pennsylvania, June 25, 1805 ; 



JOHN MAGWIRE. 805 

worked on the farm for years, and received the advantages of the 
country schools. In boyhood he developed a taste for historical read- 
ing. The Bible and New Testament were then text books in the 
schools, and were the first that he studied. Following them he read 
Josephus, Plutarch's Lives, Rollin, the History of the Wars of Napo- 
leon, and of our own Revolutionar}^ war. In the latter, the history was 
suplemented by the vast lund of anecdote and incident with which the 
recollection of his father enriched it, a fund more copious and minute 
than could possibly be put in the form of written annals. 

From the farm he went to the iron works, and engaged first as a 
clerk. Two years later, and before he was twenty-three years of age, 
he was promoted to the position of manager, and in that capacity super- 
intended the manufacture of pig iron and charcoal blooms at the works 
of Lyon, Shorb & Co. and J. H. & C. R. Schoenberger, on the Juniata, 
in Pennsylvania. 

In 1837 h^ came to St. Louis, after having visited and inspected the 
iron regions of Ohio and Kentucky, with the experience of nearly a 
score of years in the manufacture of iron in Pennsylvania, in all its 
manifold details. In the spring of 1838 he established what has ever 
since been known as the Sligo Iron Store, the object being the sale of 
the iron manufactured by Lyon, Shorb & Co. at the Sligo Rolling Mill 
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

From this time Mr. Magwire became identified with St. Louis and 
with the State of Missouri. He brought to his hew home a valuable 
fund of experience, clear and active mental powers, and an unselfish 
spirit. The latter qualit}^ is finely illustrated in his course when soli- 
cited to take part with the owners of the Iron Mountain in the manu- 
facture of iron from the ore. The offer made him was a generous one, 
but he was convinced that the first effort must result in financial dis- 
aster, and was unwilling to devote to it the years of his active life. Yet 
he felt interested in a project so vast and so promising, as it would 
eventually lead to the development of the mineral wealth of the State, 
and although it would eventually prove a powerful rival of his own in 
his own department of trade, he furnished the projectors with complete 
information relative to iron manufacture in Pennsylvania, Ohio and 
Kentucky, and laid down a complete plan for management. This 
course his partners in the East took offense at, and this led to a 
dissolution of his business relations with Lyon, Shorb & Co., in 1843. 

The view held by Mr. Magwire was that he owed it to the State, 
when men stood ready to embark in an enterprise of so much moment 



8o6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to the general welfare, to furnish them with all the information he could 
command, and to sink his individual interests. The present mineral 
development of our State is a vindication of the unselfish position he 
then assumed. 

In 1834, ^^^ year in which occurred the rupture with his Eastern 
partners, he furnished the capital for building on the river's bank, in 
the northern part of the city, the first marine railway docks that proved 
a success west of the Alleghanies. The high water of 1 844-' 45 
destroyed the ways ; but the principles of success had been demon- 
strated, and led to the construction of similar works — on the Ohio 
River, at Paducah, Madison, Cincinnati, Steubenville and Pittsburgh : 
and on the Mississippi, at Carondelet. After the destruction of his 
ways, and the removal of the machinery to Rock Island, Mr. Magwire 
contracted for and built steamboat hulls in the years i845-'6-'7-'8. 

In 1845, a tract of land fronting on the river, and sixteen arpents in 
extent, was offered at public sale and purchased by him. The title 
was contested. Arrayed against him were great wealth, high social 
position, political influence and all the talent and machinery of opinion 
that wealth and influence could bring to bear. He himself was stigma- 
tized as a land thief, the press was subsidized against him, and an 
armed mob drove him from the land and burned his saw-mill. In 1847 
he commenced suit to enforce his legal title, and after a litigation 
extending through twenty-seven years, vindicated the justice of his 
position. The case was argued eight times before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and an equal number of times before the Land 
Department at Washington, and often tried before the Department 
of the Interior and the Supreme Court of Missouri. The case of 
Magwire vs. Tyler is reported in four of the volumes of the "United 
States Supreme Court Reports." 

There was employed against him during the continuance of the suit, 
some of the most eminent lawyers in the country ; all well paid, — the 
principal ones of which were at St. Louis — Spalding, Tiffany & Sheply, 
Crocket & Briggs, R. M. Field, Britton A. Hill, Will. Wright ; Judge 
Burmle, of Mississippi; at Washington, before the Land Department: 
Colonel Benton, Wm. Carey Jones, Senator Vinton, of Ohio ; Thomas, 
of Washington City ; Abel R. Corbin, James Guthrie and Robert Tyler. 
of Louisville, Kentucky ; Judge Curtis, of Massachusetts ; Edwin M. 
Stanton, Caleb Cushing, Philip Philips, of Washington City, and others 
whose names cannot now be recalled. This arra}^ of lawyers appalled 
all his friends, and they frequently begged of him to abandon the case 



JOHN MAGWIRE. 807 

on account of the expense. Had the question been simply one of loss 
or gain, he might, perhaps, have entertained such a proposition ; but he 
felt that as his reputation was assailed he had but one course, and that 
to vindicate himself so that he might transmit to his children unimpaired 
the legacy of his father. He felt that he must establish the right to sa}- 
that "the man never lived who could say that John Magwire had 
wronged him.'' 

In delivering the opinion on the final disposal of the case, the court 
said : "The plaintiff, conscious that he had a just claim, and undis- 
mayed b}^ the law's delays, has pursued the case until this court could 
take jurisdiction, and do him justice." Commendng on the other side 
of the case, the court said : "Extended comments on their proceedings 
are not necessary, because they are obviously characterized by fraud, 
error and injustice from their incipiency to the termination." 

When the war broke out, he organized and was chairman of, the first 
Union club in the city, and was at the same time appointed by Secretary 
Chase one of the local inspectors of steam vessels for this port. He 
had to act in a kind of quasi military capacity in administering the law. 
While so acting, he was led to investigate the causes of boiler explo- 
sions, and finally applied the remedy in an improved construction of the 
boilers themselves, especially in those parts relating to the flues and the 
steam space. His theory was illustrated in the Scientijic American^ 
and received the indorsement of the conductors of that journal. They 
also complimented the author upon the discovery of a mechanical and 
scientific fact which had escaped the attention of the Board of United 
States Supervising Inspectors. If we are to judge merely by results, it 
is conclusive to say that since boilers and machinery have been altered 
to conform to his theory, there has been none of that frightful loss of 
life that had before characterized the navigation of our Western rivers. 

The subject of national finances, and the attributes and inherent 
qualities of money, have engaged much of his profound attention, and 
have received at his hands a solution, which, as a part of his life-work, 
belongs in the narration of his achievements. This subject first received 
his deep attention in 1861, when the gifted daughter of Edward Kellogg, 
of Ne>v York, put into his hands her father's book endded " Kellogg' s 
Monetary System." Stardng at first with the universally-received opin- 
ion that the questions of national currency and the relations of the 
Government thereto are among the most abstruse and recondite wath 
which the statesman has to grapple, Mr. Magwire soon became con- 
vinced that when stripped of extraneous matter they are really the most 



8o8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHEb. 

readih'-understood of any of the functions that pertain to Government. 
From the establishment of the Bank of the United States in 1816, down 
to the present time, he had been an observer of the operations of finance, 
and had witnessed the fluctuations of trade, with its seasons of depres- 
sion and distress. 

The results of his research may be briefly stated in a few plain 
propositions : 

1. That money derives its power from the seal of the sovereign 
power that is affixed to it, and not from any intrinsic value. 

2. That when affixed to a substance of no value whatever, it per- 
forms all the functions of money, as perfectly as where a commercial 
value inheres in the substance itself. 

3. When the sovereign stamp which imparts the attribute of money 
is affixed to metal or other substance having a commercial value, the 
commercial value is not in truth affected by the stamp, neither is the 
money attribute in any wise altered by the material to which the money 
token has been imparted. 

The argument that flows from these propositions is simple and har- 
monious. In connection with our constitutional provisions, and the 
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, it warrants the 
creation of an American mone}^ Gold not coined is not money, and a 
bar of gold is no more legal tender in the settlement of a contract than 
a bar of iron. "Gold," says the Supreme Court of the United States, 
"coined without the authority of Congress is not a legal tender." The 
same high authority has declared that the emission of paper money by 
Congress is constitutional, and that it is a legal tender. Here, then, 
we see that it is the stamp of the sovereign power affixed, and not an 
intrinsic value of barter, that gives it a paramount power, stopping the 
execution in the hands of the sheriff', satisfying the judgments that have 
been entered in any court in the land, and bearing upon its face the 
seal of the collective majesty of the people — of the Government. 

Says Mr. Magwire : "President Jackson, in 1832, acted as a wise 
and honest statesman in destroying the Bank of the United States, but 
he failed as a wise and able statesman in providing a remedy for the 
evil he eradicated. If he had in that day recalled all the Government 
deposits to the treasury of the United States, and disbursed the money 
of the Government from the treasury, as was done after James Guthrie 
became Secretary under President Pierce, he would have proved equal 
to the emergency. 



JOHN MAGWIRE. 809 

"The treasurer of the United States can only pay out money when 
appropriated by a law of Congress, and when the claim presented has 
been passed upon and known to be just. And when such claims are 
presented, he should be placed in a position by Congress to hand over 
the counter, not certificates of deposit, or bonds bearing interest that are 
an incubus on industr}', but dollars in money of the United States. 
From the formulated exhibits, which admit of no question, no argu- 
ment, it is shown that the annual increase of productive wealth in this 
countr}^ is but a fraction over three per cent., and yet the United States 
is paying six per cent, in gold for the use of its own paper money. 
Paying a continuous interest when it has it in its power to pay the 
principal. But, say some, you would have a plethora of currency. 
To rebut this, it is only necessary to state that this country has less 
than thirteen dollars per capita, and that France, financially the most 
prosperous country in Christendom, has thirty-seven dollars per capita. 
A single fact demolishes that argument. " 

The bond question Mr. Magwire illustrates thus : "Suppose the 
President, with the proper voucher for his yearly salary, presents 
himself at the treasury to be paid. 'Here,' says the treasurer, 'is your 
money, the money of America, with the token on its face that makes it 
money throughout the land, in itself the emblem of the sovereignty 
of the people.' 'But,' replies the President, 'I would rather you keep 
the money and issue me a certificate of a deposit, usually called a 
bond, and let me come every six months and get my interest.' 'Sir,' 
retorts the treasurer, 'it is my business to pay debts, and Congress 
provides me money for that purpose, but where am I to get money 
to pay interest with?' 'Why, sir,' says the creditor, 'tax the industr}^ 
of the countr}', and you will thus gain the money to pay over to me 
semi-annually when I present m3^self.' This is in effect what we are 
now doing. We are paying interest when we should pay principal, 
taxing productive values to pa}^ six per cent, interest when they them- 
selves are making three, and saddling productive industry with a load 
under which it groans and sweats, and from which it prays to be 
delivered. Here is the canker at the root that has withered our fair 
tree of prosperity, and for which there is one easy and honorable 
remedy. That is to pay our debts, pay them in the mone}^ which 
the Supreme Court of the United States has decided is a constitutional 
mone}', a legal tender, and withal a good money. Then let the 
holders of the money wealth stand upon the same plane with holders 
of productive wealth, and the man who has labor to sell will sell in 



8lO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the best market, with no unnatural restrictions imposed upon him ; and 
better than all, he will not be taxed to pay interest on money deposited 
in the Governmental treasury, when the treasury has no use for it." 

Mr. Magwire favors an American money system that is not under the 
power of the money lender, and the introduction of this issue into each 
congressional election until the people have their views represented in 
National Legislature, and the power of the present monopoly is broken. 

Besides the question of money and of currency, Mr. Magwire has 
taken another position with regard to the ownership of the soil, and its 
proper distribution among the citizens who form the Government. 
To this end he would interfere with no vested rights, but all of the 
public domain yet remaining unsold, he would hold as a sacred trust for 
the landless, and use it as an endowment for those not already endowed. 
Starting with the proposition that all citizens are entitled to a sufhciency 
of the elements for their support, he asserts that the natural elements 
are air, water and the soil. The latter alone is to a certain extent 
denied by the vested rights of civilization. Yet the United States has 
still a sufficiency to endow all of its citizens, and the best legal minds 
of the country have expressed the opinion, that the plan proposed 
by Mr. Magwire "will not interfere with any vested rights, or come in 
conflict with any of the provisions of the fundamental law." Mr. 
Magwire' s propositions in this regard are as follows : 

"The elements necessary to human existence are given to man in 
common. They are also given in abundance. Of these elements, the 
earth, the most substantial, is that chiefly which is made the subject of 
unrestricted ownership or surplus. 

"No one is entitled to a surplus of a common gift which deprives 
another of a sufficiency. 

"In this Government, the right to the soil is vested in the people. 
Congress is made the trustee to dispose of it for their benefit ; indi- 
vidual ownership is a blessing ; aggregate ownership a fraud. 

"A government is of no value, notwithstanding its form, if the rights 
of the individual citizen in the soil are abrogated. 

"A sufficiency of the soil to every citizen is the preventive of social 
evil. It frustrates controversy between labor and capital — it renders 
labor independent of capital. 

"A State cannot survive the loss of the citizen, nor the citizen the loss 
of his rightful sufficiency in the soil. The more assured the sufficiency, 
the more assured the citizen to uphold and perpetuate the State." 



JOHN MAGWIRE. 8ll 

It is easy to raise the cry of "Communism" at the principles advanced 
and supported by this eminent reformer, but it is by no means easy to 
meet or answer his clear and convincincf arguments. He is no mere 
dabbler or empiric, rushing forward with half-formed schemes ; but a 
cool, methodical, logical and far-sighted man, whose reverence for 
vested rights is as profound as that of any of his opponents, but who is 
yet a thorough democrat in every opinion and thought. He is a man 
to whom the officers elected or appointed to execute the laws never 
appear in the light of the government itself, but who feels that the 
expression, "we, the people," is something more than an empty form, 
and that sovereign power exists in the individuals who compose our 
commonwealth. His faith in the future is unbounded, because he can 
see no disaster that can be enduring in its consequences. False sys- 
tems of finance may rule for a time ; industry may be crippled by 
unwise legislation or loaded down with burdens that almost drive the 
people to despair; yet the country is not ruined. The country, with its 
productive acres and its rich deposits, is still here, and the people are 
all here, and happiness and prosperity cannot fail to be the result of 
their strivings, even though false leaders betray them and false theories 
oppress them, before they learn their true interests. 

In presenting his views, Mr. Magwire is consistent, able and 
unselfish, and his expressions are received with attention due their 
gravity by thousands in all parts of the United States. A cool and 
fearless thinker, with no ambition to gratify, it is not strange that his 
influence is so extended, and the feeling which he inspires so honorable 
alike to his motives and his talents. 



L. U. Reavis, Esq.: 

Sir: — I cannot consent to the publication of a sketch of my life while I am living, 
unless the facts upon which I have- founded my arguments for a proper distribu- 
tion of the public lands and for establishing a great American money system — one 
that will be solely American, and independent of any laws, usages or customs of other 



8l2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

nations or peoples — be appended to what you have extracted from articles I have hitherto 
published. Of course I must be brief, and can onl>- give the stand-points. 

I contend that every American citizen is entitled by the law of nature, as avowed by 
the founders of our Republic, to a sufficiency of all the natural elements provided from 
the beginning, which will enable man, with the co-operation of his means for labor, to 
fulfill the duties required by the law of his being — in other words, all the elements neces- 
sary for man's support, if he will apply his labor, have been furnished. 

I contend that every American is entitled by heritage, or, in the language of the 
founders of the Republic, " in an inalienable right to Ihe pursuit of happiness." That is 
to say, every citizen has a right to a sufficiency of the soil for shelter and for garden 
fruits. The day laborer, the artisan and the professional man are religiously entitled to 
the quantity necessary for shelter, the minimum amount — not as a gift, but as a right 
belonging to every citizen, of which the}' ought not to be deprived, and secured in such a 
mode that they cannot deprive themselves of the quantity sufficient for shelter; and this 
not only for their own sake, but for the common welfare. It is the first duty of the State 
to provide for the individual support of the citizen. The State cannot survive the loss of 
the citizen, nor the citizen the loss of his sufficiency. The more assured the sufficiency, 
the more assured the citizen to uphold and perpetuate the State. I do not mean that the 
State shall support the citizen ; he must support himself. But if our Republic is to be a 
perpetuity, the State must not deprive the citizen of a sufficiency of the public lands. He 
must be permitted to take his sufficiency wherever he pleases — to go upon it, or not, as 
he may choose. 

But you will not have room in your book to give, in details, the plan for giving every 
citizen a sufficiency of the public land, which I published in pamphlet in 1S73, and which 
eminent statesmen have said, if carried into eftect, "would eradicate pauperism among 
all but those who prefer beggary to any other condition; it would stimulate industry, 
and be a check to vice. It would have a most beneficent effect. The government can 
do all you ask to promote your plan, for it interferes with no vested right and comes in 
conflict with no provision of the fundamental law." 



The other question, "The money question," is secondary in its consequences, and in 
time the people will regulate it to suit themselves. The American people had the power 
to make money before they made a Constitution; that is to say, they possessed the inher- 
ent right, as does every community, to provide the means for relieving their necessities. 
An inherent right may be exercised whenever the contingency happens, whether it has 
been declared or not. When the people agreed to enter into a contract among them- 
selves, and made a charter' or constitution, they granted to Congress the exclusive right 
to make money by express words, and by words as express, denied thereafter the right 
to the States. The powers granted to Congress were coextensive with the power to grant 
The question is, what may Congress do in regard to making money.? I contend that 
Congress can have nothing to do with money, except to supply the national treasury with 
a sufficient amount to meet appropriations ; and the Treasurer is forbidden by the Consti- 
tution from allowing money to be withdrawn, in these words : "No money shall be with- 
drawn from the treasury, unless to meet appropriations made by law." Now, so far as 
Congress and the Treasurer are concerned, that is all there is in the money question — 
Congress to supply the treasury, and the Treasurer keep it safe on hand only to meet 
appropriations. 

The Treasurer cannot allow a dollar to be withdrawn, unless the proper voucher is 
produced to show that the claimant is entitled to the money for an equivalent in sortie 
way given to the Government; and when, upon a proper voucher, the money is paid, that 
closes the business between the claimant and the Government; and as to what becomes 



JOHN MAGWIRE. 813 

of the money, or what use maj' be made of it after it has left the treasury, is not a matter 
for the consideration of Congress or the Treasurer. 

The Congress, and all other agents appointed by the sovereign people to transact the 
public business, must work inside of the charter, and have no more right to provide for 
taking care of money after it has left the treasury, or for regulating the volume of the 
currency, than to provide for sheltering the cattle belonging to farmers, or regulating the 
volume of corn. 

Whenever the word money is spoken, the superstitious mind at once turns to gold. As 
when the word government is used, the mind is carried to the national capital, as though 
the government resided where the buildings have been erected for convenience and facility 
in transacting the business. When we go to Washington, there we see the agents of the 
people engaged in performing the various duties for which they have been appointed. 
But those agents — neither the Congress, the Executive, or the Judiciary, are the govern- 
ment. The government belongs wherever sovereignty resides. In our republic, the 
people are sovereign, ai'd the government and the people are one and the same. 

The agents appointed by the people must work inside of the contract or charter, and 
while so working, the people, who are sovereign, can assemble together, amend, alter, or 
abrogate the present charter, and make a new one. But, in regard to supplying the 
national treasury with a sufficient amount of money to meet appropriations, the existing 
charter grants to Congress all the power necessary to that end. The Congress can, by 
the enactment of a law, authorize the Secretarj' to put the sovereign token or seal upon 
any substance they please, which will carry with it the power of the sovereign for all 
purposes of payment, and the Congress, as said before, can impart no power to money 
except to make it a standard for payment, — Congress cannot fix standards of value. 

We have the authority of the founders of the Government, Jefterson, Franklin, and 
•others, for saying that Congress can impart power to paper money which will make it a 
valid legal tender; and two of the leading statesmen that succeeded the founders, and 
were regarded in their day as the ablest and most pi-ofound expounders of the Constitu- 
tion (Webster and Calhoun) maintained that Congress had power, under the Constitution, 
to make paper money as valid a legal tender as gold money. 

The Congress must deposit all money in the national treasury, to be disbursed by that 
office upon proper vouchers. When the treasurer parts with the money token, and affixes 
the seal of the sovereign upon it, he delivers to the person entitled a token of the sov- 
ereign power, which is not a commodity — a power that will extinguish all demands for 
payment. Apart from that function, people may put what value they please upon the 
sovereign power. A stranger may obtain the token of sovereign power, and use it in 
transferring the title of property and products; but the title of property and products 
may be changed in other modes, and be as valid as by the use of sovereign power. The 
sovpreign power cdn be invoked to transfer the possession and title to property Avithout 
the use of the money token, and the transfer be as valid as if that token had been used. 
To illustrate this averment: When a judgment is entered by a court, the plaintiff calls for 
an execution ; the court is supplied with blanks ; the clerk is directed to fill the blank and 
affix the seal of the court to the execution ; the plaintiff is armed with a power that will 
enable him to seize the property of the defendant, and have the title or possession of the 
same transferred to himself or to another. In like manner when the Treasurer of the 
United States issues to a claimant who presents a demand that has been adjudged against 
the United States, the token which has the seal of the supreme sovereign power of the 
Government upon it, the claimant goes forth armed with a power that will extinguish the 
execution issued by the subordinate power. 

The execution issued by the State Court is limited in jurisdiction and duration ; the 
execution issued by the Secretary of the Treasury is unlimited in duration and its juris- 
diction is co-extensive with that of the sovereign from whom it emanates. It has power 



8l4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to transfer the possession and title of any property within the realm. The clerk of a 
State Court cannot issue an execution unless a judgment has been obtained; neither can 
the Treasurer of the United States issue the money token unless a demand against the 
Government has been adjudged in favor of some one. 

The Congress can supply the treasury with blanks to be filled out, ready to receive the 
impress or seal of the sovereign, without using the word "money." And if they would 
do so, and substitute legal phrases which are arbitrary, this would be calculated to fix the 
mind upon the token or impress of sovereign power. The word money, however, is a 
good word and cannot be dropped; but there are other words, which are slang phrases of 
money dealers, that mislead the public mind from the correct point — such as "specie 
basis," "redeemable money," "convertible money," etc., that ought to be dropped. 



JOHN W. NOBLE. 



ONE of the most truly estimable and worthy members of the 
St. Louis Bar, is John W. Noble, the subject of this memoir. 
He was born in Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio, October 26, 
1831. His father, Colonel John Noble, was an old and highly esteemed 
citizen of Ohio, and lived to the extreme age of eighty-two. He was 
a Pennsylvanian by birth. Noble's mother was a native of Hagerstown, 
Maryland. John W. is the eighth of nine children. His brother, 
Henry C. Noble, is now a prominent lawyer of Columbus, Ohio. 

John W. Noble, of whom this sketch treats, passed his boyhood 
days in Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio, where his early education 
received attention and care. He first attended college at Miami Uni- 
versity, Ohio, passing through the junior year, which was during the 
presidency of Dr. McMasters, who was well known for his deep 
learning and scholarly qualifications. He afterward went to Yale 
College, where he passed through the junior and senior years, gradu- 
ating with honor in the year 185 1. During his collegiate course he 
was somewhat distinguished as a writer in his class, carrying ofi' one 
prize for composition, and becoming editor of the 27(/c Literary 
Magazine. 

After graduating, he turned his attention to the study of law, and 
entered the office of the Hon. Henry Stanbery, and also of his brother, 
Henry C. Noble, at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained a student 
until he determined to go West. He visited all the principal points of 
the great Northwest, and was in Leavenworth when that flourishing 
city contained but one hundred inhabitants. But of all the points of 
interest visited, none offered, to his mind, so many opportunities for 
the young professional man of energy as St. Louis, and this finally 
became his choice in the spring of 1855. He was examined for the 
Bar by Hon. Alexander Hamilton, circuit judge at that period, and was 
admitted. Mr. Noble soon became engaged in several very important 
lawsuits, and made quite a record for himself in the defense of a man 
named Middleton, who was under indictment for the kiUing of a noto- 
rious individual known as "Buffalo Bill." James R. Lackland was 



8l6 BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCHES. 

judge of the Criminal Court at the time, and Henry Clover prose- 
cuting attorney. The jury discharged the prisoner without leaving the 
court-room. This case, together with several others in which he was 
successfully engaged, gave Mr. Noble some reputation, and he was 
looked upon by the older heads as a promising young lawyer. 

But .this did not make business plenty, and he determined to go to 
Oregon, as a new field for the exercise of his professional attainments. 
Some of his friends, however, persuaded him to take a look at Keokuk, 
then the most promising city of Iowa, which he did in 1856, and was so 
pleased with the business appearance of the place that he located 
there, and at once entered upon a most successful practice. 

There were at the same bar, Samuel F. Miller, now one of the 
Justices of the Suprem.e Court of the United States, and William W. 
Belknap, now Secretary of War, and many others who have since tilled 
important public stations. Hon. Ralph P. Lowe, since Governor of 
Iowa, was then judge. Mr. Noble soon rose to a fine practice, hav- 
ing been a partner of Judge Lowe after he retired from the bench ; 
John Craig, Esq., now of Keokuk, and Henry Strong, Esq., now of 
Chicago. 

In 1861, at the breaking out of the civil war, Mr. Noble had as 
extensive a practice as any lawyer in Iowa, his business extending 
into the United States Courts and the Supreme Court of the State. 
No man in Keokuk stood hig-her in the estimation of his fellow-citizens, 
and no professional man looked forward to a brighter future ; but war 
had bared her red arm, the existence of the Government was threatened, 
the call for troops came in thunder tones from of the national capitol, 
and casting aside all personal considerations, and foregoing the allure- 
ments of a professional career, he responded to the call of his country, 
and in August 1861 enlisted in the Third Iowa Cavalry ; having pre- 
viously been in some skirmishes along the border, particularl}- at Athens, 
Missouri, as a member of the Citizens' Guard. 

Soon after his enlistment in company C of this cavalry regiment, he 
was elected First Lieutenant, and afterward appointed Adjutant of the 
regiment, and gave himself up to teaching the regiment regulations 
tactics and its duties in camp and field. The regiment was at Benton 
Barracks in the spring of 1862, when General Sherman was in com- 
mand, who offered Adjutant Noble a position on his staff', but he 
requested permission to remain with his regiment. The Third Iowa 
Cavalry was actively engaged until the close of the war, and bears a 
most honorable record for services rendered upon many a field. Noble 



GENERAL J. W. NOBLE. 8^7 

remaining with it almost continually, and rising step by step, until in 
1865 he became its Colonel. He was at the battles of Pea Ridge, the 
march to Batesville and Helena, Arkansas, at the surrender of Vicks- 
burg, several affairs about Little Rock, and then took an active part 
in re-enlisting the regiment, while Chief of Cavalry under General 
Davidson. 

After re-enlistment. Colonel Noble took part in several engagements 
in Tennessee and Mississippi against Forrest, and was finally under 
General James H. Wilson in his great cavalry raid into Alabama and 
Georgia. He was finally, with his regiment, mustered out of the ser- 
vice in August 1865. The regiment was noted for its efficiency,' and 
its record stands among the first of Iowa's glorious troops. 

For several months, while General Curtis was commanding the De- 
partment of the Missouri, with headquarters at St. Louis, Lieutenant 
Noble was Judge Advocate of the Department, but being promoted, he 
obtained leave to return to his reg;iment. 

The military record of Colonel Noble is to be found at length in the 
''History of Iowa Colonels," by A. A. Stewart, and ''Iowa in the Re- 
bellion," by Ingersoll. This latter author, after giving a full history of 
the Third Iowa Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, says : " There was not 
an engagement during the campaign, where the Third Iowa did not 
behave with great gallantry, and the meritorious services of Colonel 
Noble and his command were universally acknowledged throughout." 
Colonel Noble was promoted to a General's position at the close of the 
war for meritorious and gallant services. 

During the war, and while General Noble was yet a Major, he was 
married, at Northhampton, Massachusetts, in February 1864, to Miss 
Elizabeth S. Halsted, daughter of Dr. H. Halsted, formerl}^ of Roches- 
ter, New York, where Elizabeth was born. 

After the war, ' General Noble revisited Keokuk, but finding that 
the Bar was well filled, he determined to try his fortunes once more 
in St. Louis, and again opened an office in this city, almost a 
stranger and without clients. He was however, regaining a position 
at the Bar, and making for himself a fair practice, when in the 
spring of 1867, he received a telegram from Washington, asking him 
if he would accept the district attorney's office. He replied he 
would, and upon the recommendation of Hon. Henry Stansbery, the 
Attorney-General, he was appointed by President Johnson, and imme- 
diately confirmed, and entered upon the discharge of his duties about 
March 30, 1867. He held this office for three years, going out in the 

52 



515 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

early part of 1870, having tendered his resignation as early as August 
1869, but retaining his place at the request of Attorney-General Hoar. 
At the conclusion of his career as District Attorney, General Noble 
was personall}^ thanked for his services by General Grant at a cabinet 
meeting, where he was introduced by his old friend, General Belknap, 
then Secretary of War. 

The services of General Noble as District Attorney, although princi- 
pally directed to the inforcement of the internal revenue laws, which 
were then comparatively new, and subject so far to little decision, were 
by no means confined to these cases. He conducted numerous civil 
suits at law of considerable importance, among others, the case of the 
United States against the Adams Express Company, for a package of 
lost currency, which elicited great discussion, and resulted in a verdict 
and judgment for the United States for the sum of $15,000. He also 
had numerous cases against counterfeiters and postoffice robbers, and 
in these, with the revenue suits, he was brought in competition with the 
best lawyers of the St. Louis Bar, as well as with those of East Mis- 
souri. 

General Noble's career as District Attorney was characterized chiefly 
bv indefatigable industry in preparation, an earnest inforcement of his 
cause before a jur}^ and undeviating adherence to the instructions of 
the court and what he believed to be justice. At all times he fought 
an open fight, and honestly gave his antagonist warning of what was 
to be expected. 

After his resignation he returned to the general practice of the law, 
in which he has been steadily engaged ever since. Until within a short 
time past, his business has been but little given to the defense of revenue 
cases, although, from time to time, for the last five years, he has 
appeared for the defense against United States seizures in United States 
courts. The practice of his firm in miscellaneous civil suits in the 
United States courts, has been for several years as large, if not larger, 
than that of any other firm in St. Louis. 

In the course of his practice, General Noble has been honored 
by the confidence of some of the largest corporations and capitaHsts 
of St. Louis. He was sent by Robert and Hugh Campbell to 
New Mexico to conduct the defense of a very important suit, that of 
Huntington vs. W. H. Moore & Co., in the Supreme Court of that 
Territory, and having first reduced the judgment obtained in the lower 
courts very considerably, he took it to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and there had established all the points for which he contended. 
He was associated in this case with Hon. Wm. M. Evarts. 



GENERAL J. W . NOBLE. 819 

In the St. Louis Circuit Court, he has had numerous cases of import- 
ance, among which may be mentioned that of Adolphus Meier & Co. 
against the United States Insurance Company, in which he appeared 
for the plaintiffs, and which resulted in a verdict for his clients in the 
sum of $64,000. The case lasted about a week, and after the verdict 
the money was paid without appeal. 

General Noble, although at various times offered some of the most 
lucrative offices in the gift of his political friends, has steadily refused 
the same, ever since he was district attorney, preferring to keep to 
his private practice, which has been constantly increasing. By his 
industry, he has secured one of the most beautiful homes in St. Louis, 
but depends upon his professional practice for his income. 

A man of fine legal abilities, of a rather retiring and modest disposi- 
tion, and of unflinching integrity. Colonel Noble is happy in the pos- 
session of the good opinion and high esteem of his fellow-citizens, and 
richly deserves the reward his labors have brought him. 



HON. ENOS CLARKE. 



CAJMONG the young men who, during the last decade of the 
1l\. history of the State, have attained deserved prominence in its 
political affairs and in professional position, none is more worth}- 
of mention, and can present a clearer record, than the well-known sub- 
ject of this sketch. His success in life has been mainly due to his own 
unaided efforts and his individual traits of character. 

His ancestry were of Scotch and English origin, and settled, at an 
early day, in the State of Virginia, and during the Revolutionary period 
participated in that memorable struggle. 

Mr. Enos Clarke was born near St. Clairsville, county of Belmont, 
State of Ohio, in the year 1836, and, during his infancy, his parents 
removed to the then Western frontier, near the village of Princeton, 
Bureau county. State of lUinois, where his boyhood was passed, amid 
the rugged scenes and vigorous discipline of pioneer life. 

x\fter receiving the best public school advantages then attainable, he 
was placed in a private classical school at Princeton, and afterward, in 
the year 1855, entered the freshman class of Madison University, at 
Hamilton, New York, where, in the year 1859, ^^ graduated with the 
highest honors then awarded. In the same year he entered upon the 
study of law in the office of the eminent jurist, Chief-Justice Samuel 
Beardsley, in the city of Utica, New York, and with great zeal pursued 
his legal studies in preparation for the Bar, to which he was admitted 
in the year 1861, when, on the death of Justice Beardsley in that year, 
he became associated with his successor, A. M. Beardsley, and suc- 
ceeded to their large and important business, and became identified 
with a Bar which, at that time, embraced among its members Roscoe 
Conkling, Justice Ward Hunt, and others of later distinction. 

During this year Mr. Clarke took an active interest in the war, and 
by extended personal appeals made through Central New York, largelv 
aided in organizing troops and raising supplies for the war. During 
this year, on the proclamation being made by President Lincoln for 



822 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

a day of public fasting, Mr. Clarke, by request of the citizens, delivered 
a public address on national affairs, at Utica. 

In the year following, on receipt of a favorable proposition from the 
late Edward R. Bates, of this city, and in compliance with a long- 
cherished purpose to locate in the West, identified with the interests of 
his earlier life, Mr. Clarke came to the city of St. Louis, and formed a 
law copartnership, which continued to the time of the death of Mr. 
Bates. 

From the immediate influence of early parental teachings, and strong 
personal convictions, kindled into greater zeal during youth by the per- 
sonal influence exerted by the late Hon. Owen Lovejoy, then a Con- 
gregational clergyman at Princeton, Illinois, and known as a noted 
abolitionist and anti-slavery orator, Mr. Clarke was imbued with strong 
anti-slavery sentiments, and earnestly supporting these views, and 
deeply impressed with these convictions, he came to St. Louis an 
ardent Union man, and an avoved immediate emartcipationist. He 
at once became identified with the young men of that day, holding 
advanced views in the Republican party. 

Not long after, he became associated with the anti-slavery men of the 
State, and was one of the few members who founded the first immedi- 
ate emancipation organization ever established in this country on slave 
soil. 

When General Schofield was placed in command of the Department 
of Missouri, in 1863, against the wishes of the emancipationists, who 
preferred General Curtis, a delegation was sent to Washington to pro- 
test against this action, and to ask President Lincoln to do justice to the 
men who were foremost in sustaining the Union cause. They held that 
the most radical measures were needed in Missouri, and that to check 
them, or to give power to conservatives, was, in reality, aiding the 
cause of the rebellion in the State. Mr. Clarke was a member of this 
delegation, and did all in his power to place the matter fairly before the 
President. Though not successful then in their mission, the delegation 
accomplished something, and had the satisfaction at a later period of 
the war to see the President adopt their views in relation to a policy in 
Missouri. 

In 1864, Mr. Clarke was elected to the Legislature from St. Louis 
county, by a very flattering majority, and on taking his seat, was placed 
on the important committees of Education, Corporations, and Emanci- 
pation, He did not, like many other members, rise to speak and give 
his views on every matter brought before the House, but was content to- 



HON. ENOS CLARKE. 823 

watch the course of legislation carefully, do his work faithfully in com- 
mittees, and whenever questions of importance, and involving principles, 
were presented, to discuss them intelligently and with calm judgment. 
In this way it was discovered that he had opinions worth listening to, 
and whenever he addressed the speaker, there was given to him the 
closest attention. He presented several petitions in behalf of the 
colored people of the State for the right of suffrage, moved an amend- 
ment in that respect to the Constitution of the State, and supported it 
in a carefully-prepared speech, which, for its boldness of views, and 
force of appeal, at the time commanded wide circulation, and attracted 
the attention of Senator Sumner, Gerritt Smith, and other anti-slavery 
men of the country, and elicited from them numerous expressions of 
approbation. During the session, Mr. Clarke effected among the 
colored people a State organization, in aid of colored suffrage, and 
through these means secured from Oberlin, Ohio, John M. Lang- 
ston, Esq., the eloquent colored orator, to make a canvass of this State, 
in order to advance public opinion, and obtained for Mr. Langston a 
final hearing in the hall of the House of Representatives at Jefferson 
City, which, at that time, owing to the prevalence of public sentiment, 
even among advanced Republicans, (strange as it may now appear,) 
required no small amount of moral courage to undertake. This occur- 
rence has become memorable, not alone from the fact of the eloquent 
and powerful address then delivered, but also from being the first intro- 
duction of a colored man to a public assembly in the "State House at 
Jefferson City. 

On the election by the General Assembly of curators of the State 
University, Mr. Clarke was elected as associate with Rev. Dr. H. A. 
Nelson, then of this city, from the First congressional district, and held 
the position of curator until he removed from that district in the year 
1867. He was especially devoted to the interests of the University, 
and during his official term did much to revive its waning fortunes, and 
give it a basis more permanent than it had before the war. 

In the year 1867, Mr. Clarke was appointed by Chief -Justice Chase 
one of the Registers in Bankruptcy of the United States District Court 
for the Eastern District of Missouri, which position he continues to hold, 
intelligently discharging its responsible and delicate duties without 
partiality, and with judicial fairness to all. 

In the year 1869, when, under the existing provisions of the bankrupt 
act, it appeared that the duties of his position would be greatly abridged, 
Mr. Clarke prepared to resume the active duties of his profession, 



824 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and formed a law co-partnership with ex-Judge Geo. A. Madill, which 
continued until the election of the latter to the circuit court bench. 
Since that time his attention has been almost wholly confined to official 
duties and such public and private trusts as have come to his care. 

Mr. Clarke's political experience for the past six or eight years has 
been somewhat varied. 

In the year 1868, he was earnestly supported by the Missouri Demo- 
crat and other influential Republican papers of the State, for the position 
of Attorney-General at the approaching State Convention of that 3^ear, 
but he declined to permit his name to be then presented. 

In 1870 he was a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and 
on the proposition to grant right of suffrage to those who participated in 
the late rebellion, he joined the fortunes of the liberal wing of the 
Repubhcan party, and gave his support to B. Gratz Brown for Governor. 

He continued to co-operate with the Liberals during the administra- 
tion of Governor Brown, and in 1872 went to Cincinnati in attendance 
upon the Liberal Convention, to aid in securing, if possible, the nomi- 
nation of Mr. Adams for President, and was one of the honorar}- 
officers of that convention. On the defeat of his choice, he afterward 
supported the Greeley and Brown ticket, and made one or two speeches 
in its behalf, addressing himself more particularly to his old anti-slaver}- 
friends. 

During the same year, he was a member of the Liberal Republican 
Convention at Jefferson City, which acted with the Liberal Democratic 
Convention then in session, and in the distribution of nominations he 
was, to himself unexpectedly, placed in nomination by his own Con- 
vention for the position of Lieutenant-Governor, on the ticket with 
Governor Woodson, and would have been nominated, but, when the 
final vote was declared, yielded in favor of Colonel Gilmore, of 
Springfield ; and when the latter gentleman was declared ineligible, 
the position on the ticket was tendered him b}' the State Executive 
Committee, but he again declined. 

Mr. Clarke's political position at this time, and a little later, was, no 
doubt, in some respects unpleasant, as he was separated from many of 
the old friends with wnom he had co-operated in the Union and Anti- 
Slavery cause, and was obliged to form associations with those whose 
principles had in no wise harmonized with his ; but- the course of the 
Republican administration had been such, in his opinion, as to justify 
him in withholding from it his support, and the condition of the country, 
he thought, demanded a more liberal polic}- — especially in the recon- 



HON. ENOS CLARKE. 825 

struction of the Southern States. The number of those in Missouri 
who entertained similar views was by no means small, and embraced 
many who had been the staunchest Union men and Republicans. 

The restoration of ex-Confederates to franchise, and the accession of 
the Democratic party to power, were not marked by the same degree 
of liberality toward their Republican allies as had been shown them. 
In 1874, therefore, Liberal Republicans were found in large numbers, 
under the leadership of Schurz, supporting William Gentry for Gov- 
ernor, and doing their best to overthrow Democracy. Mr. Clarke was 
among the number, and took an active part in the "People's move- 
ment." Although unsuccessful, that campaign did much to bring 
Republicans of all shades of opinion together. Since that time Mr. 
Clarke has quietly watched the course of events without making any 
public expression of his political opinions. He is strongly attached to 
General Schurz, and doubtless will co-operate with him and others of 
the independent movements in future. 

In the year 1868, Mr. Clarke became one of the founders of what 
was known as the "Twentieth Century Club," in this city, corres- 
ponding to the "Bird Club," of Boston, and which was com- 
posed of a dozen or more of the most prominent Republicans of 
the State. This association especially promoted the election of 
Mr. Schurz as Senator, and became a potent force in political affairs 
of this State, down to the time of the dissensions in the Republican 
ranks in 1870, when it afterward consisted of Liberal Republicans. It 
is a significant fact, however, that nearly all of them now are opposing 
the paper money theories of the Democratic party, and support the 
general policy of the Republican party. 

Mr. Clarke has devoted considerable attention during his busy 
career to literature, and has stored his mind with the best thoughts and 
views of the standard authors on all subjects. In 1862, he delivered a 
literary address before the Adelphian Society of his Alma Mater ^ and 
in 1866, on invitation of the joint literary societies of the same institu- 
tion, he delivered the anniversary address on the occasion of the annual 
commencement. This was the first time a like compliment had ever 
been extended by this venerable institution to so young a member of 
its alumni. 

Mr. Clarke has frequently been called upon to address lyceums and 
literary societies, and is listened to with great satisfaction. He is a 
sound thinker, an easy writer, and an earnest speaker. 

Mr. Clarke was married in 1862, to M. Annette, daughter of the 



826 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Hon. John J. Foote, of New York City. He has an elegant residence, 
and most attractive grounds, at Woodlawn, on the Pacific Railroad, 
near Kirkwood, and all his domestic surroundings are such as to render 
his life pleasant and happy. He is keenl}' alive to all that is good and 
beautiful in nature and art, and not only enjoys vs^hat Providence has 
spread before him, but takes quite as much pleasure in ministering to 
the happiness of others. 

Mr. Clarke is one of the few young men of St. Louis who give 
more than usual promise of future usefulness and prominence. His 
exact habits and exemplary deportment bespeak for him a high social 
position, as well as a marked public career. 



DR. CHARLES H. HUGHES. 



vAyNOTHER physician whose fame, both in and out of the profes- 
J^Jl. sion of medicine, entitles his name to a place in this biographical 
history, is Dr. Charles Hamilton Hughes, the subject of this 
brief sketch. 

Dr. Hughes, being "to the manor born," is pre-eminently our own. 
He was born in St. Louis, May 23, 1839. ^^^ father, Captain H. J. 
Hughes, a builder of repute in his day, came to the city about 1835, 
from Allen county, Ohio, whither his grandfather, Richard Hughes, 
had immigrated from Westmoreland county, Virginia, the place of 
Washington's nativity. Dr. Hughes' mother was a Miss Stocker, of 
Baltimore. 

Charles' early education was begun in the public schools of St. Louis, 
subsequently continued under a private tutor — the Rev. Mr. Dennison, 
of Rock Island, Illinois — and concluded in 1855 at Iowa University, 
then located across the Mississippi river at Davenport. At the termina- 
tion of his academic training, he began the study of medicine under 
Dr. James Thistle, of the latter place, but previously from Natchez, 
Mississippi : a very reputable and skillful physician. Through his pre- 
ceptor, young Hughes became acquainted with Dr. Thistle's brother-in- 
law, the celebrated Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, of New Orleans, and 
from the latter imbibed an enthusiastic love for profound research in 
medical science. 

In 1857, he returned to his native city to continue his medical studies. 
His name appears in the catalogue of students of the St. Louis Medical 
College for that and the succeeding year until the spring of 1859, when 
he received his diploma. 

During his pupilage, he was clinical assistant at the United States 
Marine Hospital, then under charge of Dr. Wm. M. McPheeters. 

He spent the time intervening between the breaking out of the civil 
war, in country practice in Warren county, and in traveling. 

Earl}^ in the war, he joined the State forces in the capacity of Assist- 
ant Surgeon. 



828 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

In 1862, he was commissioned b}^ Governor Gamble full Surgeon, in 
Colonel John B. Gray's regiment — the First Missouri State Militia Vol- 
unteers — and served with the rank of Major and Surgeon until the close 
of the conflict. 

His skill and ability being recognized at headquarters, he was kept 
mainl}' on detached service, in charge of post and general hospitals at 
St. Louis, DeSoto, Pilot Knob and Rolla. He is known in this militar}- 
department to the department commanders, the sanitary commission 
and many of our citizens, as the Surgeon in charge of Hickory Street 
Hospital, Stragglers' Camp and Schofield Barracks. He was also for a 
time in charge of McDowell's College Prison Hospital. 

He was in charge of the Hickor}- Street Hospital at St. Louis, when 
ordered to take the field. This was an important epoch in the Doctor's 
career, as the following extract clipped from an old copy of the Repub- 
lican illustrates : 

Surgeon Charles H. Hughes, of the First Missouri State Militia, for some time past in 
charge of the Hickorj Street Military Hospital, who this morning leaves the city, is a 
member of General John B. Gray's staff". Prior to the departure, a marriage takes place, 
at the early hour of 5 a. m., at the Second Presbyterian Church, corner of Walnut and 
Fifth streets. The parties to be united are Major Hughes and Miss Addie Case, daughter 
of Luther Case, Esq. The bride accompanies her husband to Arcadia, below Ironton. 

"And she went with him to the tented field," when General Davidson 
was preparing to march into Arkansas. 

Miss Addie Case was a bright and charming creature, well known to 
the pupils of Mrs. Smith's Seminary at the time of her marriage ; and 
at the time of her sad and sudden death, of heart disease, in 1870, 
mourned by hosts of devoted friends scarcely less than by her sadly 
bereaved husband. Dr. Hughes was then in charge of the State 
Lunatic Asylum. This blow seemed almost too much for him. After 
this mournful event, he traveled a great deal to enable him to withstand 
the unexpected bereavement and alleviate his sorrow. He remained in 
charge of the State Lunatic Asylum up to 1872, when he resigned, after 
a service at the head of that institute of over five years, and returned to 
practice his profession in his native city, where he now resides, growing 
in skill and reputation with his years. 

His reports and recommendations to the General Assembly while in 
charge of the State Asylum, indicate the skillful physician, the Christian 
philanthropist, and accomplished scholar, and withal, the possession of 
rare executive abilities — the same abilities by which he was character- 
ized in the field, as shown by the reports of inspecting officers sent to 



CHARLES H. HUGHES, M . D . 829 

Washi;igton. His tent hospital at Victoria was "the best conducted 
field hospital in the service." 

After being honorably mustered out of the Federal service, he took 
up his abode at Mexico, Missouri, where he practiced his profession 
with signal success for about one year. From thence he was called by 
the board of directors of the State Lunatic Asylum to take charge of 
that institution, to which he had been chosen in accordance with the 
recommendation of the lamented and distinguished Dr. Charles A. 
Pope, and other eminent men in the profession of this city. There he 
remained, as we have seen, over five years, discharging the responsible 
duties of that important position with singular executive and medical 
ability. 

His reputation as a skillful alienist physician steadily grew during all 
the time of his connection with the asylum at Fulton. It was there that 
he acquired that special training which has made him so well and 
favorably known as a physician especially qualified "to minister to the 
mind diseased," and by which he has become distinguished among his 
medical brethren. 

Dr. Hughes has been a frequent contributor to the medical press of 
the State and country. The productions of his pen are always well 
received and extensively read by the profession, and his reputation in 
the treatment of diseases of the brain and nervous system is second 
to none other in the West. His articles on these diseases, published 
in the Journal of Insanity^ and other medical periodicals, are read by 
the entire medical fraternity of the Union. 

He is a prominent member of the Medical Societ}^ and chairman of 
the Committee on Credentials. He is also a member of the Association 
of Superintendents of American Asylums for the Insane, an organiza- 
tion of thirty years' standing in the United States. 

In the Cronenbold insanity and murder case. Dr. Hughes was one of 
the joint commission appointed by the court to inquire into and report 
upon the mental condition of the prisoner. This celebrated case is still 
fresh in the minds of the St. Louis public as one of the most remarkable 
on record. Dr. Hughes drew up and pubHshed a full history of the 
case, and the prisoner, who was pronounced insane, was remanded to 
the insane asylum. Dr. Hughes' opinion on the insanity of a prisoner 
has seldom been ignored by a jury. 

As a member of the Association of Superintendents of American 
Asylums for the Insane, he has contributed a number of valuable 
papers for the consideration of this body at. their annual meetings. At 



830 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the Nashville meeting, in 1873, his paper entitled "Psychical or Physi- 
cal," was the principal paper of that session, and went deep into the 
mysteries of mind and matter. At the Albany, New York, meet- 
ing, in 1874, ^^^ dissertation on the dual action and vicarious function 
of the cerebral lobes and hemispheres, maintaining that the organiza- 
tion of the human brain is double, like that of the kidneys or lungs, 
thus enabling one-half of the brain to suffer serious injur}^ and extensive 
disease without necessarily impairing mentality, is a powerful argument. 

His cursory view of insanity read before the alumni of the St. Louis 
Medical College in 1874, and ordered printed by the association, is 
regarded by eminent experts as the best effort extant at condensation of 
the subject. His papers on insanity read before the Medical Society 
are known to all the public. In the Medical Society he is called the 
eloquent physician, so fluently does he speak on all subjects in which 
he is interested. Valuable papers of his on yellow fever and spinal- 
meningitis, read before the Medical Society, were given to the public 
some time ago b}^ the reporters of the medical press ; he has also written 
interesting and thoughtful papers on alchohol, the hereditary neuroses 
and other subjects, to which we have not access and which the modest 
Doctor declined to furnish us. 

Dr. Hughes has literary and poetical abilities of no mean order, and 
under a fictitious name he sometimes indulges in humorous and other 
contributions to the press. He is an occasional contributor to the 
Inland Monthly, only his popular scientific papers, however, bearing 
his own signature. 

Dr. Hughes has been twice married. In 1873, he married the hand- 
some and accomplished daughter of H. Lawther, Esq., of Callaway 
county. Three children of his first wife survive ; of his last marriage 
one child has been born. 

Dr. Hughes being one of the youngest of the eminent medical men of 
St. Louis, with a reputation in the front rank of his profession acknowl- 
edged and established, and a still brighter and higher career before 
him, in which St. Louisans take a just pride, we venture to indulge the 
hope that the years may be spared him to inscribe his name still higher 
on "the Round of Fame's Triumphal Arch," to endure with the eminent 
men of the great West and its metropolis to all coming time — a name 
and fame which it is the object of this work to perpetuate. 



AUGUSTUS KRIECKHAUS. 



/ I \0 those who are well acquainted with the German character, 
_1_ their habits of thrift and industry, and particularl}^ the admirable 
system of education which obtains throughout the German empire, 
the fact of so many having attained to wealth and prominence in 
America is not at all surprising. Brought up from infancy under a 
regime of praiseworthy economy, and thoroughly trained in the laws 
and regulations which govern trade and commerce, they are ready, upon 
their, first arrival on our shores, to embark on the great ocean of com- 
merce, and a large per centum of them succeed in gaining prominence 
and independence in the New World, where the majority of other 
nationalities fail. 

Augustus Krieckhaus, a worthy representative of his race, was 
born March 17, 1835, ^" Cleve, in Rhenish Prussia. His father, who 
was a tanner, and carried on quite an extensive establishment, was in 
good circumstances. Young Augustus attended the schools of his 
native town until his fourteenth year, when his father, on account of 
some reverses in his business, emigrated with his family, and in 1849 
settled in St. Louis. 

He immediately gave his attention to the manufacture of leather, and 
established a tannery. Young Augustus entered the establishment of 
L. & C. Speck in the capacity of errand bo3\ Here he remained 
about one year, when he entered the establishment of his father, and 
learned the tanning process in all its branches. His father dying in 
1853, he, as the eldest of the family, took charge of the business — 
since changed from a manufacturing into a mercantile business, that of 
buying and selling hides and leather — and which, under his efficient 
management, has swelled to enormous proportions. 

Mr. Krieckhaus' thorough business enterprise and energy soon 
attracted the attention of his fellow-citizens. The spirit he .displayed 
in the transaction of his own particular branch of industry, the interest 
he took in all matters relating to the public welfare, soon made him a 
representative man, so that in 1863 he was chosen to represent the 



832 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

First ward in the Cit}' Council, and so satisfactorih' did he till the seat 
that for ten years he was one of the most active members of that body.. 
In 1867, he was chosen president of the Council, which position he 
filled two terms, and his decisions were noted for their clearness and 
impartiality. In 1869, when the Democratic party came into power, 
and formed a majority in the Council, he, although a Republican, was 
chosen vice-president, a mOst expressive compliment, indicating the 
confidence his associates had in his honesty and integrity. During his 
term of office, every enterprise of a public character elicited his atten- 
tion. He was a stern and able advocate of the present system of water- 
works, and never ceased agitating the matter until the old system was 
done away with, and the new and present one adopted. No member 
of the municipal board watched more faithfully the public treasury, and 
while a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the city finances 
were the object of his especial care. 

In addition to the regular branch of industry in which Mr. Krieck- 
haus has for so many years been successfully employed, he has also 
been connected with some of our most important financial organizations 
and insurance corporations. For many years he was a director in the 
Washington Insurance Company ; from 1867 until 1872 he was presi- 
dent of the German Insurance Company ; and is now a director in the 
German Mutual Insurance Company, and the German Mutual Life 
Insurance Company. His weight and influence in the boards of these 
organizations are acknowledged by his associates, who are ever willing 
to seek his sound advice and judgment in time of need. 

In 1868, Mr. Krieckhaus was elected president of the German Bank, 
a prominent position he still holds to the financial welfare of the insti- 
tution. 

Mr. Krieckhaus was married in 1857 to Miss Katharina Kiefaber, of 
St. Louis, a lady much admired for her many rare qualities, who has 
borne him ten children, seven of whom are living. 

Although ever in sympathy with the Republican party, and a strict 
Union man, Mr. Krieckhaus was always conservative in his ideas, and 
always refrained from that extreme partisanship so reprehensible in any 
party man. Where his conscientious notions of right and wrong told 
him the policy of the party was likely to come in antagonistic contact 
with the public welfare, there his party allegiance stopped, and he 
advocated a different policy. This, doubtless, caused some of the 
more ultra of his party to look upon his Republicanism with an eye of 



AUGUSTUS KRIECKHAUS. 833 

suspicion, yet he ever held the confidence of the masses, and never 
f ailed to prove himself worthy of it. 

Mr. Krieckhaiis is a sound thinker, possessed of good, practical com- 
mon sense, which he brings to bear upon every enterprise in which he 
engages. In the different boards of directors with which he has held 
connection, on all questions pertaining to finances or policy his opinion 
is a weight and an authority. He has successfully managed his own 
affairs until he is surrounded by a handsome competency and an inde- 
pendence. He has never missed an opportunity of forwarding the 
interests of his adopted city, spending his money freely and throwing 
his whole interest into all matters gotten up for its welfare. 

He is now in the full vigor of his manhood, possessed of everything 
calculated to make life bright and cheerful. Genial and social by 
nature, he stands high in private society no less than public life, and 
his friends predict much for him in the future. 



ss 



SKETCHES 



OF LEADING 



COMMERCIAL v^^ MANUFACTURING 



ESTABLISHMENTS, 



AND 



EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 



OF 



ST. LOUIS AND MISSOURL 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



THE PRESS OF ST. LOUIS. 



THE MISSOURI REPUBLICAN. 

According to the most authentic accounts, the first newspaper published 
west of the Mississippi river was the Missotiri Gazette^ a small sheet, meas- 
uring twelve by sixteen inches. Its career commenced on the 12th of July, 
1808. A year later, the title was changed to the Louisiana Gazette^ and in 
July, 18 18, the first name was resumed, but in 1822 it became the Missouri 
Repztblican, which it has ever since borne. It was a weekly paper until 
April 9, 1833, when it began to be issued twice a week. On the 3d of April, 
1835, it commenced a tri-weekly edition, and in September of the following 
year the publication of the daily began. The press on which the paper was 
first worked was the pioneer press of the West. It was a rude concern of 
the Franklin model, but answered the demands of that day. The Republica?i 
was quick to avail itself of power presses after their invention, and by May, 
1849, had grown in size to twenty-eight by forty-eight inches, and possessed 
a large establishment fitted out with the best machinery to be had, when 
the great fire that month, which nearly destroyed the city, wiped the whole 
building and its contents out of existence in a night. But a single day's 
intermission occurred in the publication of the paper, and new machinery 
was promptly obtained. Prosperity continued, and by 1853, the paper had 
attained the gigantic proportions of thirt^^-three by fifty-six inches, making it, 
with two exceptions, the largest paper in America. The Republican was 
then printed on a double-cylinder, and in March, 1S59, by one of Hoe's 
rotary four-cylinder printing machines. To this was added, in 1864, an 
eight-cylinder Hoe. 

In May, 1S70, the Republican was again visited by fire, and the whole 
establishment was destroyed. But one day's issue was missed, however, and 
the proprietors with characteristic enterprise constructed in ten days, on the 
ruins of the burned building, a new structure, and on the seventh day after 
the fire the paper was restored to its former size. A new and elegant build- 
ing was shortly after commenced, on Third and Chestnut streets, which it was 
intended should surpass any similar edifice in the country. 



IV LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

In importance and general character it ranks with the great dailies of the 
country, by none of whom it is surpassed, and is popularly known as the 
great representative journal of the West. Its tone is high and dignified, and 
few newspapers, anywhere, enjoy such a widespread influence. 

For many years the Republican was edited by Colonel A. B. Chambers, 
who was also one of the proprietors. He was succeeded by Nathaniel 
Paschall, who remained in control of the editorial department until the time 
of his death. Mr. William Hyde, the present editor-in-chief, has conducted 
the paper with conspicuous ability for several years. He is ably assisted by 
Mr. Grissom, Mr. Dimmock, Mr. T. E. Garret, Mr. Waterloo, Mr. Arden 
Smith, Mr. Dacus, Mr. William Fayel, and many other experienced jour- 
nalists — the whole corps of editors and reporters being about twenty, besides 
special correspondents at all important points. The daily force in the compo- 
sition room numbers from sixty to seventy men, and nearly an equal number 
are employed as carriers. There are altogether upon its pay-roll about two 
hundred and fifty men, the whole of this force being employed upon the 
newspaper, no job printing or other outside work being execut(;d in the 
Republican establishment. 

The concern is conducted by a stock company known as George Knapp & 
Company, of which George Knapp, John Knapp and Henry G. Paschall are 
directors. The brothers Knapp came to St. Louis at a very early day, when 
St. Louis was a mere village, and have not only carved out their own fortunes, 
but have aided materially in the growth and prosperity of the city. 

THE GLOBE-DEMOCRAT. 

The paper bearing the above compound title, but which for many years 
was known as the St. Louis Democrat^ has more than an ordinarily interesting 
history. It has not only repeated the experiences incident to the foimding and 
permanent establishment of all the large journals of the country, with which 
it takes rank, but its early life is so closely identified with the rise and 
growth of the Republican party in Missouri, that the story of its career is the 
history of that party. 

In 1S45, the Free-soil doctrine which had then, for some time, had a follow- 
ing in the free States, began to be agitated in the slave State of Missouri. Its 
advocates were very naturally in the minority, but they were sufficiently 
numerous, it was thought, to justify the publication of a journal devoted to 
their interest. The Barnburner was accordingly commenced by Mr. Wm. 
McKee, as a campaign paper. It continued through the campaign but 
eventually suspended publication. In 1S50 Mr. McKee, in connection with 
Mr. W. Hill, began the publication of the Daily Setitinel in advocacy of the 
same doctrines, and with nearly the same subscription list that had supported 
the Barnburner. A few years afterward, these gentlemen purchased the 
Union — an opposition journal — and merging the two together, formed the 



THE PRESS OF ST. LOUIS. V 

Missouri Detiwcrat. This was in 1853, and from that time, until the late 
sale to the Globe^ the Democrat grew steadily in circulation and influence. 
The Detiiocrat characterized the first year of its existence by a brilliant 
support of the nomination of Thomas H. Benton, for Congress. After the 
election of President Buchanan, whom it supported, it gradually adopted the 
iaith of the then new Republican party, and at the time of the election of 
Mr. Lincoln, was one of its staunchest defenders. During the trying, early 
war days, and throughout the whole of the contest, it was a fearless defender 
of the Government and was so strong and earnest in its course, that on several 
occasions its ofiice was threatened with violence, from which it was protected 
by guards of United States troops. 

From the commencement of the enterprise, Hon. Francis P. Blair, Jr., held 
a proprietary interest in it, having at one time an equal share with Mr. McKee 
and Mr. Hill. In 1857, Mr. George W. Fishback, who, since 1854, had 
been the city and commercial editor of the Democrat, purchased a one-sixth 
interest, and Mr. Hill, failing in health, retired. Hon. B. Gratz Brown, about 
this time, also purchased an interest. This, how^ever, he subsequently transr 
ferred to Mr. Fishback. Mr. Daniel M. Houser, in 1863, purchased one-sixth 
interest, and Mr. Blair then retired, as did also Mr. Brown. From this time 
the publishing firm was known as McKee, Fishback & Co. In 1872, Mr. 
Fishback, becoming dissatisfied with the management, made a proposition to 
his associates, for their interest or to sell them his. The matter was finally 
left to the courts, by whom the establishment was sold, the bidding being 
restricted to the proprietors. The paper was purchased by Mr. Fishback at 
$456,100, and a stock company, with a capital of $500,060, was immediately 
formed. Mr. Fishback retained a controlling nvunber of shares, and the 
remainder were divided between Mr. W. P. Fishback and Mr. Otto H. 
Hassleman, formerly of the Indianapolis yournal, Mr. R. Holmes, Mr. J. B. 
McCullagh and other gentlemen connected with the editorial and business 
departments of the paper. 

A few months after the sale of the Democrat to Mr. Fishback, Messrs. 
McKee and Houser purchased materials and started a first class daily paper, 
called the Globe. ,The office of publication was on Third street between Pine 
and Chestnut streets. The paper was edited with much ability, and from the 
beginning was a success. Mr. McCullagh left the Detnocrat in the autumn 
of 1873, and became managing editor of the Globe. A bitter and unrelenting 
warfare was commenced between the Globe and Democrat., which terminated 
only with the sale of the latter to Messrs. McKee and Houser, on the i8th 
day of Alay, 1875, the purchase price being $335,000. TheGlobc and Demo- 
crat were then merged, and the product was the Globe-Democrat. Messrs. 
McKee and Houser are the proprietors, and Mr. Joseph B. McCullagh is 
managing editor. Connected with the editorial staff, are Mr. John A. Dillon 
(principal editorial writer), George W. Gilson, city editor, Mr. Henry 
McKee, commercial editor, Mr. Phil. G. Furguson ("Jenks"), who is known 



VI , LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

far and wide as one of the best humorous writers of the day, Mr. Cunning- 
ham, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Temple, Captain John H. Bowen, river editor, and 
several other gentlemen of well-known newspaper experience and literary 
ability. 

The Globe- Democrat has now a large and rapidly-increasing circulation, 
and occupies a proud position in journalism. 

THE ST. LOUIS TIMES. 

It may be said of the St. Louis Thnes, without boastfulness on the part of 
its publishers, and without any departure from veracity, that its success as a 
newspaper has had few, if any, parallels in this country ; certainly none, when 
we consider the peculiar time and circumstances of its origin. 

A little more than a year after the war, the gentlemen who conceived the 
enterprise entered upon their work with small capital, in the face of many 
difficulties, and with rich and powerful competitors, jealous, perhaps, of 
innovations, and already long established in the field of journalism. 

The first number of the new paper was issued on the 3 ist of July, 1866, 
the counting office of the company being in a small room scarcely larger than 
a printer's stand, at No. 317I Pine street, under DeBar's Opera House. 
Many and formidable were the embarrassments encountered, and many were 
the predictions that the project would soon fail for want of support ; but the 
publishers, Messrs. D. A. Mahoney, Stilson Hutchins and John Hodnett, all 
originally from Dubuque, Iowa, knew no such word as fail. They perceived 
that a vacanc}' existed at the time in our political journalism, and resolved to 
fill it. Through their persistent energy, the work was accomplished and the 
Times successfully established. 

On the ist of July, 1S67, the office was removed to No. 306 North Third 
street, where it remained. On the 6th of December of the same year, Mr. 
Mahonev withdrew from the paper and returned to Iowa. In September, 
1869, Major Henry Ewing, of Nashville, Tennessee, purchased a one-third 
interest in the establishment, and on the 13th of July, 1873, Mr. Hutchins dis- 
posed of his interest to Major Ewing. The death of Major Ewing occurring 
in 1873, a new management was organized, with Hon. George B. Clark and 
Charles A. Mantz, Esq., as prominent members. Mr. Clark afterward 
retired, and Major C. C. Rainwater came into the combination. Mr. Stilson 
Hutchins, a short time after, was placed in control of the editorial depart- 
ment, and still continues in that position. In June, 1874, Mr. Charles A. 
Mantz, Mr. Estill McHenry, and other stockholders liad a meeting and trans- 
ferred the controlling interest to Frank J. Bowman, Esq., and Hon. Celsus 
Price. These gentlemen placed the editorial management in the hands of 
Colonel E. H. E. Jameson, In two weeks, however, the establishment was 
sold by D. C. Stone, Esq., under a deed of trust, and purchased by Colonel 
John T. Crisp. Mr. Hutchins was reinstated as managing editor. Besides 



THE PRESS OF ST. LOUIS. VII 

Mr. Hutchins, the principal members of the editorial staff' are, R. H. 
Sylvester, Esq., who has been connected with the paper for several years, and 
is a vigorous and ready writer ; Major John N. Edwards, who also writes 
leading articles for the Evening Dispatch; Mr. Edward Willet ("Carl 
Brent"), a gentleman of great versatility in literature; Mr. Stevens, city 
editor ; Mr. Fisher, commercial editor ; Mr. Paris ; Mr. J. H. Carter, river 
editor, and better known to the world as "Commodore Rolling Pin." 

THE ST. LOUIS DISPATCH, 

The leading evening paper, is a successor of the Eveni7ig News^ formerly 
published by Charles G. Ramsey, Esq. The Dispatch w^as successfully 
conducted for a time by William McHenry and Peter L. Foy. It was subse- 
quently sold to other parties, Mr. D. Robert Barclay becoming one of the 
purchasers. The parties holding a majority of the stock placed the manage- 
ment of the paper in the hands of Hon. Stilson Hutchins, who moved the 
office to the Times Building, corner Fifth and Chestnut streets. It is a 
sprightly, newsy paper, and has a good circulation in the city. The paper is 
edited by the Times editorial force. It is advertised for sale, and undoubtedly 
will be made a first-class journal in time. 

THE EVENING JOURNAL 

Is published by Wolcott, Hume & Co., on Fifth street, between Olive and 
Locust streets. It is an outgrowth of the Weekly Journal of Commerce^ 
and has reached a position of prosperity and influence. Although the 
yozirnal does not receive its telegraphic news by the Associated Press, it 
obtains all the really important information of the country by the Atlantic and 
Pacific telegraph line, and by special dispatches. 



THE GERMAN PRESS. 

THE ANZEIGER DES WESTENS. 

The oldest daily newspaper in the city in the German language is the 
Anzeiger des Westens. It was established in 1834. Since 1S63 it has been 
owned and published by Carl Daenzer, and has attained a large circulation. 
The paper is independent in politics, but has had leanings toward the Demo- 
cratic party. 

THE WESTLICHE POST 

Is published daily and weekly, at Fifth and Market streets, by Plate, Olshausen 
& Co. The principal editors are Emil Preetorius and Carl Schurz. This 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



paper, for some years, was an influential exponent of Republican principles, 
but claims now to be independent and liberal in politics. 



THE AMERIKA 



Is published daily and weekly at io6 North Third street. It is understood to 
be an organ of the Catholic Church, and as such has a large circvdation and 
considerable influence. Anton Helmich is chief editor, and Hon. Henry J. 
Spaunhorst is president of the board of managers. 



THE PUBLIC PARKS OF ST. LOUIS. 



The county of St. Louis is almost an island, and fronts to the east about 
thirty-two miles, on the "Father of Waters," with the turbid Missouri on the 
north and west, and the beautiful Meramec, with its bright and crystal waters, 
bounding it on the south. Its soil is highly productive, and a large body of 
land, ."Florisant Valley," occupying an elevated plateau, and watered by a 
small stream, is unsurpassed in fertility, and in rare pastural and agricultural 
beauty. The charming diversity which characterizes the surface of St. Louis 
county, adorned as it is by hill and dale, woodland and prairie, aided by the 
noblest and most majestic rivers of the earth, which almost encompass, and 
the smaller streams which beautify and irrigate it, would indeed fit the entire 
county for a grand national i:)ark. 

Mighty rivers are usually attended with vast areas of bottom lands, but by 
far the greatest portion of the river front of St. Louis county presents abrupt 
hills and rocky clifts, giving extraordinary elevation to the general surface of 
its lands, and grand and imposing panoramic views from the surrounding 
rivers reaching the centre of the county, where an altitude is attained of about 
four hundred feet above the water level. A few miles below the city of St. 
Louis, which, with its river front of more than thirteen miles, presents from 
the Illinois shore a fine panorama, begin the palisades, which extend with 
increasing height and importance to the Grand Tower, a lone crag whose 
base is washed on every side by the Mississippi. 

The general contour of the surface of the county is pyramidal, the smaller 
streams, rising generally near its apex, and flowing to the different points of 
the compass, until they reach, often through abrupt and rocky banks, the 
respective rivers. Notwithstanding the unusual beauty and fertility of its 
lands, it is sparsely inhabited, and the tourist, unacquainted with the fact, 
will often fancy that the forest-capped hill, with its gentle slopes of lawn-like 
prairie is embellished with some stately villa or magnificent and aristocratic 



THE PUBLIC PARKS OF ST. LOUIS. IX 

mansion. The delusion is only dispelled to be again and aga,in renewed with 
each changing prospect. Here a genial climate develops, in rare luxuriance, 
all indigenous trees, plants, vines and flowers, and in no other soil do exotics 
flourish and bloom in greater perfection. 

With such surroundings, the tastes of the people have been easily and 
naturally led to the adornment of their noble city. A large number of public 
squares, spacious boulevards and extensive parks, comprising nearly two 
thousand three hundred acres, have been created and so well distributed and 
judiciously connected and arranged, as to furnish a grand system ; none of 
them too remote for full and free enjoyment to-day, yet ample in extent and 
stiitable in location, when St. Louis shall have quadrupled her present popu- 
lation. 

Missouri Park, Hyde Park, Gravois Park, Jackson Place, Carr Place and 
Washington Square are all within the limits of the populated portion of the 
city, and although not yet decorated with much skill or expense, they have 
green grass and growing trees, and will, when the population becomes dense, 
be to St. Louis, what Madison and Union Squares, City Hall Park and 
Washington Parade Grounds, are to the city of New York ; the lungs of the 
city, and places of recreation and amusement where, on the sward, among 
lofty trees with their graceful verdure and grateful shade, the children of toil 
may at least be reminded of the more extended beauties of nature. 

LAFAYETTE PARK. 

Lafayette Park contains thirty acres. It is nearlv square, is bounded by 
broad and imposing streets and surrounded by elegant dwellings in the midst 
of extensive and highly decorated grounds. 

A few years since, its site was an open common, without tree or shrub ; now 
its dense shade, its mimic lake, water-falls and grottoes, its elegant and well 
constructed walks and paths, as well as its bright and numerous parterres, 
attest the cviltivated and artistic taste of its founders, as well as the generous 
soil and beneficent climate which have so speedily caused the arid waste to 
blossom as the rose. ' 

o'fallon park, 

Occupies a prominent position on the bluffs, and a commanding view of 
the extensive valley and waters of the Mississippi. It lies in the northern 
portion of the city, and was the country seat of the late Colonel John O'Fallon, 
who carefully, almost sacredly, preserved its superb trees, which with its wide 
views and bold outline make it in truth a park. Already accessible by well 
traveled thoroughfares, these romantic and admirable grounds, containing 
one hundred and eighty acres, need only to be sufflciently penetrated with 
suitable drives and promenades to make them a charming resort. 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



TOWER GROVE PARK. 



Shaw's Botanical Gai'den and Tower Grove Park, owe their existence to 
the beneficent design of a citizen of Si. Louis, who devotes a princely estate, 
the most enlarged experience, exquisite taste and almost all of his time, to their 
development, care and embellishment. An extensive arboreum connected 
with the Botanical Garden, makes the latter complete. Combined, they 
embrace about three hundred and thirty acres, and are the pride and highest 
source of gratification to the people of St. Louis. The garden and arboreum 
contain almost every plant, flower, shrub or tree, indigenous or exotic, and 
have excited the attention and commanded the admiration of all visitors of 
taste and love of the refined and beautiful. Lying in one group, they are all 
to be a gift to the people of St. Louis for their perpetual use and enjoyment. 
The park has been recently improved and opened to the public ; it is well set 
in grass and abundantly planted in rare trees, deciduous and evergreen, ere 
long to furnish abundant shade to its well-constructed and delightful road- 
ways. The entrances to the park are elegant and imposing, and many 
graceful pagoda-like summer-houses and other handsome buildings already 
adorn the grounds. 

LINDELL PARK. 

In its course from Forest Park to Grand avenue. Forest Park Boulevard 
enters into Lindell Park, where for three thousand feet, the boulevard is 
"widened to the unusual width of two hundred and twenty-six feet. Lindell 
Park contains sixty acres, and is elegantly and charmingly situated, occupying 
the greater portion of the only ridge running east and west between Forest 
Park and the city. Crowned with trees of native growth, and embellished 
with great taste in serpentine drives and walks, it commands a fine prospect 
north and south, and a fair view of the city. 

FOREST PARK. 

Forest Park lies immediately west of the center of the city, in the direct 
line of its greatest growth and progress, and in full view of the elegant man- 
sions of its wealthiest citizens. To Hiram W. Leflingwell the city of St. 
L,ouis is indebted for the conception of her grand park. He first proposed a 
park containing about three thousand acres of land, lying in the same general 
direction from the city as Forest Park. His plan was in advance of the wants, 
•condition and population of St. Louis, but it was afterward modified so as to 
•embrace only the present boundaries of the park. A bill for its establishment 
was prepared, passed by the Legislature, and approved March 35, 1872. 
Some of the property owners resisted the act, and upon appeal to the 
Supreme Court of the State, it was declared to be unconstitutional. Mr. 



THE PUBLIC PARKS OF ST. LOUIS. XI 

Leffingwell still earnestly advocated the enterprise, and in January 1874, at 
a meeting of the friends of Forest Park, Andrew McKinley was requested 
to take charge of the new bill, and attempt to pass it through the Legislature. 
He consented to do so, went at once to Jefferson City and consulted with the 
members of the St. Louis delegation. A few days after, he returned to the 
capital, accompanied by a large delegation of citizens friendly to the scheme, 
among whom was Mr. J. B. Geggie, who rendered most efficient service. 
A meeting of the St. Louis delegation was held to hear the petition of the 
citizens. Many objections were made to the provisions of the bill, and it was 
modified to conform to the views of the St. Louis members. After a pro- 
tracted struggle, it passed the Senate by a vote of 30 to 7, and the House by 
a vote of 89 to 8. It was approved by the Governor on the 25th March 1874. 
The constitutionality of the new bill was again assailed. It was resisted by 
the same parties who had opposed the former bill. Able counsel were em- 
ployed by both sides, Messrs. Glover & Shepley and Thos. T. Gantt appear- 
ing for the contestants, and ex-Governor Reynolds for the bill, in behalf of 
the county. In eight months and five daj^s from the date of the passage of 
the bill, the Supreme Court of the State unanimously declared it to be valid 
and constitutional in all its provisions. Three appraisers were immediately 
thereafter appointed, and on the 37th of March 1875, after patient investi- 
gation and labor, they reported the value of the lands to be the sum of 
$799,995. The awards were generally acquiesced in, a decree of condemna- 
tion was made, and the park board was very soon thereafter put in possession 
of the lands. The work of permanent improvement began on the 15th of 
April 1875, and has since been vigorously prosecuted. It is now visited by 
large numbers of citizens and strangers, who express their gratification at the 
beauty developed by the improvements already made. Well-organized plans 
are being furnished by M. G. Kern, landscape gardener, and by Colonel Henry 
Flad, civil engineer, which promise to make it one of the most attractive 
parks in the United States. This park contains i,374 acres of land, lying 
immediately west of the center of the city ; has a fi'ontage of one mile on 
King's Highway, and runs westwardly within parallel lines a little over two 
miles. The board of commissioners, which convened for the first time on 
the 17th June 1874, consisted of John O'Neil, Hiram W. Leffingwell, Ansyl 
Phillips, John O. F. Farrar, P. G. Gerhart, John J. Fitzwilliam and Andrew 
McKinley. Their organization was completed by the election of Andrew 
McKinley president, Ansyl Phillips vice-president, and Charles Bland vSmith 
secretary. All of these officers were re-elected at the next annual meeting, 
and the board remains the same, except that Chauncey Shultz, presiding 
Justice of the County Court, is ex-officio a member of the board in place of 
Joseph O'Neil, whose term of office expired. 

The Board of Commissioners have been diligent in the exercise of their 
duties, and although meeting every Friday, have never been without a 
quorum. No commissioner receives any compensation for his services, nor 



XII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

can one, under the law, have any contract with the park. Mr. McKinley 
devotes his entire time to its affairs, and all the others constantly visit the 
park and give efficient co-operation in its management. It is to be at once 
made accessible by four leading lines of street railroad, and by the St. Louis 
County, and St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern railways, both of which 
will pass through the northeast portion of the park, upon a double track, on 
the same road-bed, first passing through a tunnel on the eastern line of access 
to the park, and then on an embankment at an elevation of twenty-five feet. 
The Lindell Boulevard entrance to the park passes under this embankment, 
through a highly ornamented viaduct, and will be a bold, ornate and grand 
feature in this line of approach. Visitors may thus pass at pleasure, and 
with perfect safety, either over the tunnel or through the viaduct under the 
railroad track. A beautiful cottage, to be used as a casino, has been erected, 
and a frame dwelling, now occupied by the laborers, will be used as a con- 
servatory for plants when the improvements are in a more advanced stage. 
Seven bridges, and between seven and eight miles of charmingly-located 
drives now adorn the grounds. A pool with a diameter of about two 
hundred and fifty feet, near the northeast entrance, will be ornamented ere 
long with a fine fountain. The site of a lake, comprising about fifty acres, 
has been determined upon, and this work will be rapidly prosecuted during 
the fall and winter. The park board promise the public from three to four 
miles of gravel drives before the frost interferes with their labors. The 
temporary improvement of Lindell Boulevard, now being carried forward, 
will make the park access enjoyable, even during the winter months. The 
public interest in Forest Park is manifest by the large number of persons who 
daily visit there and note the progress of the work. 

Forest Park is the center of the grand system of the parks of St. Louis and 
lies four miles west of the Court-house. It is far larger than any other. 
Lindell Boulevard and Forest Park Boulevard, each about two miles in 
length, the former one hundred and ninety-four feet, and the latter one 
hundred and fifty feet wide, are parallel to each other, and lead directly from 
the park to the heart of the city. Four grand boulevards bound the park on 
the north, east, south and west, the narrowest of which is one hundred and 
twenty feet wide. The "Boulevard Bill," passed by the Legislature at the 
session of 1875, provided for connections with the other parks. With as 
much natural beauty as distinguishes any portion of St. Louis county, the 
grounds are especially adapted, by rare and manifold advantages, to minister 
to the enjoyment and reci'eation of the denizens of a great city. 

An area of the Park, of at least eleven hundred acres in extent, is covered 
by the original forest, and hence the title by which it is designated. Black, 
white, post and water oak, gum and horse chestnut, blackberry, elm, butter- 
nut, ash and tulip trees are found in great quantity, and are the principal trees 
of large size ; while among the smaller growth is found the red-bud and other 
flowering trees, which, grotesquely festooned here and there by the wild 



THE PUBLIC PARKS OF ST. LOUIS. XIII 

grape-vine, make of the park, at the appropriate season, a rare scene of 
beauty and enchantment. 

A feature of the Park is the little stream known as the River Des Peres, 
which traverses it diagonally from the northwest to the southeast. Meander- 
ing for a distance of four miles, now through quiet valleys and slopes, and 
again under high and precipitous bluffs, it furnishes sites for extensive lakes, 
which may be constructed with but little labor and expense. The soil is 
light and extremely fertile, and the famous blue-grass being indigenous, needs 
only exposure to light and ventilation to insure a fine sward. 

The general level of the park is about one hundred and fifty feet above the 
level of the Mississippi River, but at some points it rises much higher. From 
these, views of the city, and country for many miles can be had, and present 
beauties and attractions rarely combined. 

It is strange, indeed, that this large body of land, so much of which is now 
in the same state as when the savage roamed through it, should have been 
preserved to form the principal pleasure grounds of a great city. Art, with 
its magic power, is tracing paths and constructing carriage drives through its 
whole extent ; is arranging its original growth into fanciful groups ; trans- 
forming its rugged and diversified surface into beautiful slopes and terraces, 
and generally making it " a thing of beauty," which will be " a joy forever." 

ANDREW m'kINLEY. 

It is impossible to trace the history of the permanent improvements of oin* 
city, especially those which belong to Forest Pai'k, without introducing the 
name of Mr. Andrew McKinley, and according to him a very large measure 
of the credit due for that monument of our city's liberality and taste. He has 
long been identified with St. Louis, not only in spirit and ambition, but in 
permanent interests. A man of poetic and artistic feeling, exquisite taste 
and rare judgment and liberality, his natural gifts are such as fall to the lot of 
few, and his commerce with the world has been of the kind that elevates and 
improves. The work of superintending the embellishment of Forest Park, 
which he has so unselfishly undertaken, without any hope or expectation of 
substantial reward, is one for which he is peculiarly fitted, and that great 
and beautiful resort may be expected to bear the impress of his character. 

He is a Kentuckian by birth, and about fifty-six years of age. His father, 
Justice McKinley, was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and died in 1852. 

Andrew McKinley received a liberal education, and in assisting his father, 
who was many years an invalid, became a good lawyer. He married a 
daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Ashley, who was afterwards the wife of Hon. 
John J. Crittenden. 

In 1840 he came to St. Louis, and practiced law here for five years. After 
that identification with our city in an early day, he returned to Kentucky, 



XIV LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

where he spent fourteen years, during six of which he was one of the State 
officers— Register of the Land Office. In 1859 he came again to St. Louis, 
and engaged in active business in the firm of McKinley, Peterson & Co. 
During this residence in St. Louis he was president of the Great Republic 
Insurance Company, president of the Board of Underwriters, and trustee of 
the Eastern Division of the Union Pacific Raih'oad. In 1S65 he took up his 
residence in New York City, and remained there for seven years. In 1872 
he returned to St. Louis, his former home, wdiere he had always had large 
interests. His faith in the growth and prosperity of the city was unbounded, 
and he entered with ardor and a clear conception of our civic needs into the 
scheme for laying out a park'worthy of the metropolis of the West. 

That a scheme so fertile in results, involving such a large outlay, and per- 
tinaciously opposed by strong combinations, was carried through in a year of 
financial panic : that the act was passed when the pressure of a financial revul- 
sion was severest : and that the money was asked for when commercial credit 
was utterly disrupted for the time, is only to be ascribed to the rare know- 
ledge of men and sound judgment which, in the person of Mr. McKinley, 
urged forward a movement of such deep import to eveiy denizen of our cit}-. 
He was known to be benevolent and public-spirited, his acquaintance was 
large, his friends devoted to him, and his reputation unsullied. 

To the record of a private life singularly distinguished for the virtues that 
make men interesting to and beloved by their associates, he is now adding a 
service that is calculated to enhance the happiness of millions, and to confer 
its benefits equally upon all. In this labor, so well worthy the efforts of any 
man, so difficvilt of adequate accomplishment, are engaged his strong under- 
standing, scholarly cultivation, ripe experience, and a temperament that 
grows kindlier and richer with each new scheme of public good. 



THE COTTON TRADE OF ST. LOUIS. 



It requires no very extended argument or comment to show the surpassing 
advantages of St. Louis as a market for the great staple of the South. The 
present proportions of the trade show what energy, enterprise and capital 
can do, and give promise of magnificent aggregates in the future. 

Beginning with the consideration of this trade at the period anterior to the 
war, we find nothing that could tempt the sanguine to urge the claims of 
St. Louis. The supremacy of New Orleans and of the sea-board cities of 
the South was undisputed and unquestioned. St. Louis made no figure at 
all, and careful observers even failed to see an opening for the enterprise of 



THE COTTON TRADE OF ST. LOUIS. • XV 

a city so far north, and so much off, (what then was) the established line 
of communication between the plantations of the South and the manufac- 
tories of the Eastern States and of Europe. 

With peace and hopeful confidence, came also a reconstruction of com- 
mercial lines, and extensive application of a new and important element in 
the solution of the transportation problem. Railroads were built with an 
activity and a lavish expenditure that is even now a wonder. Old lines of 
traffic and travel were supplemented by this new element of civilization, and 
new lines were opened more important than any that had before existed. 
Able and energetic men now mooted the question of making St. Louis 
a great cotton market. The number at first was not large, but as the facts of 
their leading propositions came to be demonstrated, their numbers were 
rapidly swelled. Their propositions were briefly these : 

1. That as all commercial transactions are based upon exchange, it is 
desirable for the planter to have a good market in which to buy, as well as a 
good market in which to sell. 

2. Freights from the plantations to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to the 
manufactures, are no greater than by other favored routes, and we are conse- 
quently at no disadvantage in that particular. 

3. As St. Louis lies near the producing points for plantation supplies, and 
is in fact the depot for those supplies, the planter can buy here more advan- 
tageously than elsewhere, and in this particular there is a positive advantage. 

It was also urged, and the event shows, with truth, that when facilities for 
handling and compressing were established in St. Louis, she would draw 
large supplies from regions that regarded her with disfavor as a market, and 
would soon come to be looked upon as a favored market by spinners and 
Eastern merchants. All this has now come to pass, and St. Louis has 
achieved a standing as a cotton market, among consumers of the East and 
producers of the South, that is worth all it has cost. 

In this connection it will be interesting to note how, from comparative 
insignificance, the aggregates have become respectable during the last half 
decade. Until 1S74 the statistics were always presented along with others of 
the Exchange, and covered the period from January to January. Since St. 
Louis has taken rank as a cotton market, the statistics have been made up to 
cover the cotton year from September to September, and conformed to the : 
system adopted by all other markets for the staple. Those here given are 
from September to September, and show an increase that is due to the 
untiring energy of our merchants : 

1869-70 18,518 

i87o-'7i -0.470 

1871-72 36,421 

i872-'73 • • 59'7o6 

1873-74 ' ...103,000 

1874-75 132,000 

54 



XVI LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

These figures, showing such rapid and continuous increase, attest the grow- 
ing importance which this branch of commerce is assuming. They indicate 
courageous and careful work on the part of our merchants ; the employment 
of large capital ; the establishment of facilities for handling, and liberal freight 
rates by river and rail into the cotton country. Our merchants have become 
alive to the importance of securing favorable freight rates, and in this, have 
in the main, received the hearty co-operation of lines centering here. The 
branch of the Iron Mountain railroad traversing the State of Arkansas, has 
in the last two years opened a new and fertile field for operations. It is of 
the rich State of Arkansas that Governor Conway, in his message to the 
Legislature in 1858, truthfully said: "If we had labor enough to cultivate 
all the cotton lands in the State, Arkansas alone could supply the markets o^ 
the world w^ith as much cotton as is now raised by all the cotton-growing 
States of the United States." Cotton has been found a profitable ci^op in 
Southern Missouri, and about five thousand bales from that section come 
here annually. Texas and the Indian Territory are each reaching out their 
hands for closer commercial relations, and their planters are becoming 
convinced that they can sell to as good advantage, and buy to better 
advantage, than in the markets of the Gulf. Northern Mississippi and 
Western Tennessee each contribute their proportion to the aggregate of this 
trade, and each is looking with greater favor upon St. Louis, awaking to 
the fact that old conditions are passing away, and that in the new adjust- 
ment, St. Louis has superior facilities. 

In 1873 was organized a Cotton Exchange. During the following year, 
membership rose to about a hundred, and about forty firms interested in the 
purchase, sale and handling of cotton were represented. 

One means of attracting attention to St. Louis as a cotton market, and 
making known the determination of her merchants to enter the field boldly 
and compete without favor, was the offering of premiums to be distributed at 
our annual fair. 

In 1S70, jive thousand dollars were raised for that purpose. It was 
designed to show that St. Louis was in earnest, and that her merchants were 
confident of their own powers and the advantages within their reach. In 
187 1 ten thousand dollars were raised as a premium, and duly distributed. 
Again in 1873 and in 1S74 the same munificent sum was raised through the 
energy and liberality of some of our leading merchants and business men, 
who contributed freely to make up the splendid premiums offered by the St. 
Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association. The spirit of earnestness 
and determination evinced by such liberality, naturally led to the inquir}^ that 
was expected, and from that inquiry St. Louis came to have an established 
reputation at the South as a desirable market. The bringing of the cotton 
here was but the first of a series of commercial benefits. It brought us into 
more intimate social and trade relations with the people of a section glad to 
acknowledge such a relationship, and the benefits resulting have ramified into 
every department of active life. 



THE COTTON TRADE OF ST. LOUIS. X\ai 

The warehouses and compresses, treating them in the order of their seni- 
ority, are : 

1st. The Pepper Warehouse, at the corner of Twelfth and Market streets, 
iinto which was introduced a new and powerful press. 

2d. The Evans Brothers' Warehouse, opened for business in December 
1873, on Twelfth street, at the intersection of the Pacific Railroad. 

3d. The St. Louis Cotton Compress Company, fronting on the river at 
Park avenue. This establishment has two Taylor presses, the most powerful 
and costly press made — the press, indeed, that is made the standard for ocean 
freights by steamship. Besides compressing into the smallest bulk, the 
advantage is here secured of handling without drayage. Switches connect 
it with the railroad tracks for all points, and a track to the river unloads 
cotton from the steamers without the intervention of a dray. 

4th. The Factors' and Brokers' covers the block bounded by Lafayette and 
Columbus streets, and Emmettand DeKalb streets, three hundred feet square, 
and also has rail connections that obviate drayage. 

The growing importance of St. Louis in this branch of trade, one that 
requires so much technical knowledge to properly handle, has brought to St. 
Louis many experienced merchants from other cities, and classifications and 
customs have been conformed to those which obtain in other markets. A 
rigid system of economy has also been introduced for the protection of ship- 
pers, and the pilferings, which have become such a serious matter at 
Southern seaports, are entirely avoided. All the various advantages which 
St. Louis has to offer are rapidly convincing Southern shippers that they get 
more in exchange for their cotton in St. Louis than they can get elsewhere, 
and the result is a growth of the trade that is full of hope. It may be added, 
however, that this growth is deserved, and that our merchants have worked 
hard for the increase that they have been favored with. 

The commercial aspect of the cotton trade is, however, destined, notwith- 
standing the magnificence of its future, to stand second. Manufacturing is to 
occupy the foremost position and to be the greatest source of wealth. Of the 
cotton that comes to St. Louis there should be a very considerable portion 
woven into fabrics by our own looms. In this department of industry a com- 
mencement has already been made, and the successes that have attended the 
manufacture of cotton already, will, in time, lead to efforts commensurate 
with our facilities and the needs to be subserved. When we look at the noble 
opportunities which exist here, it is interesting to compare our progress in 
the manufacture of a Southern staple with that of the States of the North and 
Northeast. The following shows the cotton spindles in operation during the 
year 1874, in the various States named : 

CENTRAL AND NORTHERN. 

Ohio 42,000 Michigan 5jOOO 

Indiana 26,000 Iowa 

Illinois 20,000 



XVIII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



NEW ENGLAND AND NORTHERN. 

Massachusetts 3,820,000 New York .' . 706,000 

Rhode Island 1,430,000 Maine 660,000 

New Hampshire 859,000 Pennsylvania 660,000 

Connecticut 836,000 Vermont 59,000 

SOUTHERN. 

Georgia 153,000 Mississippi 32,000 

Maryland 109,000 Missouri 17,000 

South Carolina 50,000 Alabama 43,000 

North Carolina 51,000 Texas 11,000 

Tennessee 44,000 Kentucky 10,000 

Virginia 47,000 Arkansas 756 

Delaware 40,000 

It requires but a glance at this table to see how immeasurably ahead of us 
are the States on the Northern Atlantic sea-board. The cotton of Texas and 
of Arkansas is handed froni one extremity of the Union to the other, across 
seventeen degrees of latitude and across twenty-eight degrees of longitude, 
and then, while our own water-power runs to waste and our coal lies dor- 
mant, it is converted by busy hands into fabrics, which are again distributed 
from St. Louis to clothe the people of the Mississippi Valley. Yet it is 
apparent that this conditions are transient. In the new life, already showing 
signs of its coming vigor, millions of spindles will convert fleecy staple into 
rivers of cloth on the soil of Missouri, giving employment to a teeming jDopu- 
lation, and obeying the economic laws essential to the highest prosperity. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



Washington University owes its existence primarily to the wise forethought 
and public spirit of Hon. Wayman Crow. While a member of the State 
Senate, in 1853, it occurred to him that " it would not be amiss to get a 
charter for an educational institution in St. Louis," and without consulting 
any of his friends he drew up a charter, authorizing in the most general terms 
the organization of "The Eliot Seminary." 

The corporators and first board of directors were as follows : Christopher 
Rhodes, Samuel Treat, John M. Krum, John Cavender, George Partridge, 
Phocian R. McCreery, John How, William Glasgow, Jr., George Pegram, 
N. J. Eaton, James Smith, S. A. Ranlett, Mann Butler, William G. Eliot, 
Hudson E. Bridge, Samuel Russell and Wayman Crow. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. XIX 

On the 33d of February 1854, the directors organized under the charter by 
the election of Dr. William G. Eliot as president and Wayman Crow as 
vice-president. S. A. Ranlett was chosen secretary, and John Cavender 
treasurer. Mr. Cavender served six years, and when he resigned, Mr. 
Ranlett was made treasurer, as well as secretary. With this exception, no 
change has been made in the officers of the board up to the present time 
(August 1S75). 

The organization was preceded by the adoption of a constitution, and 
followed' by a brief address by President Eliot. The name inserted in the 
constitution was the "Washington Institute." This change of name was 
made at the suggestion of Dr. Eliot, who naturally preferred to work for 
an institution not bearing his own name. The name "Washington" was 
recommended from the purely accidental circumstance that the charter was 
approved on the 23d of February. The word seminary was changed to 
" institute" from an idea that the latter was a broader term, and that it better 
expressed a practical character. Later, as plans for the various departments 
were more fully developed, the word "University" was adopted as the only 
one sufficiently comprehensive. 

The eighth article of the constitution declares that : 

No instruction, either sectarian in religion or partisan in politics, shall be allowed in 
any department of the University, and no sectarian or partisan test shall be used in the 
election of professors, teachers or other officers of the University; nor shall any such 
test ever be used in said University for any purpose whatever. This article shall be 
understood as the fundamental condition on which all endowments of whatever kind 
are received. 

Three years later, by act of the General Assembly, the charter was 
amended by making the name "Washington University," and incorporating 
the article just quoted, thus securing the University forever from all oppor- 
tunity for theological or political dissensions. 

The address of President Eliot, referred to above, gives quite fully the 
objects and aims of the corporation. He gives as one of the motives by which 
they were impelled to so great an undertaking: 



Thirdly^ We propose to found an institution for the public benefit. This, perhaps, 
considered on a large scale, is the strongest motive by which we are actuated. We live 
in that part of the United States which will probably give character to the whole country 
in its future generations. Our city will probably be one of the largest and most influential 
in the Western Valley. The necessity of laying a broad and substantial foundation for 
educational, religious, and philanthropic institutions is therefore strong and imperative. 
There is no time to be lost, for the growth in population is so rapid that our utmost 
exertions can scarce keep pace with it * ***** 

There is one view of Washington Institute which I desire to keep particularly prominent 
— its practical character and tendencies. I hope to see the time when that which we call 
the practical and scientific department will stand in the foreground to give character to all 
the rest. In what way this can be accomplished, we cannot of course now predict. This 
will depend in part upon those by whom the requisite funds are supplied. But in some 
way or other, a practical and scientific direction must be given to all educational schemes 
of the present day. ********* 



XX LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

I am confident that we have no private ends to serve, no concealed purpose of making 
sectarian capital, but that we are beginning in good faith, and mean to go on in good 
faith with exclusive regard to the interests of sound practical education, to do what we can 
in this cause for the public benefit. ******* 
Above all, it must be our constant endeavor to keep narrow and sectarian influences from 
every department of this institute. 

Before this first meeting adjourned, contributions of money and land were 
made amounting to about eighty thousand dollars. 

Thus was the infant University born and cradled. From the very beginning 
its friends have been devoted and generous. It is not the purpose of this, 
sketch to give the names of all its benefactors, nor their benefactions in detail. 
Many of them are well-known, and their names are prominently connected 
with the University. 

The first actual teaching under the charter of the University was in the 
winter of iS54-'55. Under the charge of Mr. (now Doctor) N. D. Tirrell, a 
teacher from the public schools, an evening school was opened in the old 
Benton School House, on Sixth street (now a theatre), and continued four 
months. The whole number of pupils was two hundred and seventy. The 
school was called the O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute.* 

For years these evening schools, vs^hich rapidly increased in number and 
popularity, were sustained at first wholly by the University, then the expense 
was shared with the Board of Public Schools ; and finally by special arrange- 
ment the entire burden of the various evening schools was assumed by the 
Public School Board. 

In September 1856, the classical and scientific school, now known as the 
"Academy," was opened in the new building on Seventh street, near 
Washington avenue. The register of the first year shows a total of one 
hundred and eight scholars. The school was in charge of Messrs. J. D. Low 
and N. D. Tirrell. 

On the 33d of April 1857 the formal inaugurationof Washington University 
took place. Hon. Edward Everett delivered an oration to a crowded audi- 
ence in Mercantile Library Hall upon " Academical Education." The 
exercises also included addresses by President Eliot ; Mr. J. D. Low, 
principal of the academy ; Hon. John How, president of the board of man- 
agers of the O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute ; Hon. Samuel Treat, one of 
the directors ; and Rev. Dr. Post. At that time it was publicly stated that 
the gifts to the University '"exceeded $300,000," chiefly contributed by 
directors and their friends in St. Louis. 

During the year 1857 the Chemical Laboratory building was erected, and 
the appointment of Professor Abram Litton to the chair of Chemistry, and 
Professor J. J. Reynolds (now Major-General, U. S. A.) to the chair of 
Mechanics and Engineering, marked the opening of an advanced scientific 

school. 

t 

*In honor of Colonel John O'Fallon. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. XXI 

In the autumn of 185S, work was begun on the building Intended for the 
O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute, on the corner of Chestnut and Seventh streets. 
The lot of land was given by Colonel O'Fallon. This work progressed 
slowly and under great difficulties. The plans adopted proved very expens- 
ive ; the breaking out of the war caused repeated suspensions of the work, 
but its friends were never discouraged. Finally, after the expiration of nine 
years, the magnificent building was completed. It was dedicated on the 
evening of June I3, 1S67. The occasion was one of great rejoicing. 
Addresses were made by Hon. John How, Dr. C. A. Pope, Rev. Dr. Post, 
Chancellor Chauvenet, and President Eliot. The exact cost of the building 
has never been known ; it has been variously estimated at from $350,000 to 
$450,000. 

But costly as the building was in evei-y way, a year's use of it showed that 
it was unsuited to the wants of the University. Its situation was unfortunate ; 
the arrangement of many of the rooms was inconvenient ; moreover, it had 
burdened the University with debt. Under these circumstances, it was 
thought best to accept an offer of purchase made by the Board of Public 
Schools, and the building, with its furniture, was sold during the summer of 
1868. The terms of the sale included an agreement on the part of the 
public schools to sustain indefinitely, and according to the original intentions, 
the Polytechnic evening schools. Thus relieved of the elementary institute 
work, the University devoted its energies with renewed zeal to the higher 
functions of a Polytechnic school. 

Meanwhile a collegiate department had been organized, a college building 
had been erected fronting on Washington avenue, and on the 17th of Decem- 
ber 1858 Professor Joseph G. Hoyt, of Exeter, New Hampshire, had been 
elected Chancellor. He entered upon the discharge of his duties in February 
1859, and was formally inaugurated in October of the same year. 

Mary Institute was founded May :i, 1859, and opened September of the 
same year, under the charge of Professor Edwin D. Sanborn. 

On the 19th of March 1S60, by vote of the directors, the law department 
of the University was established. This action followed a full report upon 
the subject presented by Henry Hitchcock, Esq. The war, however, delayed 
the opening of the school till October 1867. 

The year i86o-'6i closed with everything looking hopeful and prosperous. 
All existing departments of the University were in successful operation. The 
financial condition of the University was encouraging. It was free from debt, 
and held property which was worth, at a moderate valuation, $450,000. 

The year i86i-'63 was that of the breaking out of the civil war. The 
capture of " Camp Jackson " was the beginning of a trying period, during 
which all educational institutions in the city were at their lowest ebb. At 
the University, the attendance fell to one half, the number of teachers was 
reduced, and it was only by the greatest efforts that all the departments 
were sustained. In the gathering darkness of the year, Dr. Eliot, referring 



XXII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

to the difficulty of obtaining the funds needful for the University, said : 
''The institution has been nursed and reared almost from its birth in times 
of difficulty, and under circumstances of great discouragement." * 

The first class graduated from the college in June 1863, Chancellor Hoyt 
conferring the degrees. 

On the 36th of November ic>63 the University suffered its first great loss in 
the death of Chancellor Hoyt. He died in his prime, at the age of forty- 
eight years. Chancellor Hoyt was an enthusiastic and successful teacher, 
a thorough scholar, a wise and judicious officer, a brilliant writer and 
speaker, and an active, public-spirited citizen. Professor William Chauvenet 
was elected to the vacant Chancellorship, and was formally inaugurated 
in June 1S63. 

As the fury of the war subsided, and the city increased rapidly in popula- 
tion, the University prospered more than ever. As has been said, the St. 
Louis Law School was opened in October 1867. The faculty was composed 
of members of the St. Louis Bar, who were selected for their professional 
zeal and success. Professor Henry Hitchcock was appointed Dean. For 
several years the sessions of the school were held in the old Polytechnic build- 
ing, on Seventh and Chestnut streets, an arrangement having been made for 
that purpose with the Board of Public Schools after the sale of the building. 
On the completion of the new Polytechnic wing of the University Hall, in 
1S73, the law school moved into its present quarters. The first class of law 
students graduated in 1S69. 

Up to 1S69, the scientific school had consisted only of a few advanced 
students, irregularly classed, none following a regular course of study. At 
this time professional courses of study were adopted in civil and mechanical 
engineering and in chemistry. In 1S70, a fourth year was added to the full 
courses, and soon after a course of study in mining and metallurgy was 
arranged. In the summer of 1871, Professor C. M. Woodward was appointed 
Dean of the Faculty of the Polytechnic School. The first professional degrees 
were conferred in this department in June, 1871, (five degrees in Civil 
Engineering) . 

In December 1S70, Chancellor Chauvenet died, after a long illness. In 
losing him, the University suffered another heavy loss. He was a teacher and 
a writer of the first rank, and his death was mourned throughout two con- 
tinents. At Chancellor Chauvenet's death, President Eliot became acting 
Chancellor. 

In the spring of 187 1, the foundations of the Polytechnic wing of Univer- 
sity Hall were laid, and before winter had set in, the new building was 
inclosed and a new roof, with an additional story, had been added to the old 
building. This year was a white one for the University. Its friends were 
true and strong, and through their aid great progress was made. Between 

•Report, April 12, 1861. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. , XXIII 

$350,000 and $300,000 was furnished for buildings, apparatus, and endow- 
ments. Of this amount $100,000 was given by Hon. Hudson E. Bridge. 

In February 1S73 Dr. W. G. Eliot, the president of the board of directors, 
was inaugurated Chancellor of the University. 

From that time till now (August 1875), all departments have greatly pros- 
pered. The confidence of the community in the excellence and good faith 
of the Univ^ersity has continually increased. The people of St. Louis can 
now point with pride to each of the well-appointed departments of the Uni- 
versity. 

I. The Academy, so long under the charge of Professor George B. Stone, 
now in care of Professor Denham Arnold, is a most excellent, classical and 
English school for boys. The studies are more especially arranged for those 
who desire to enter the college or Polytechnic school. It has a large corps or 
teachers and an attendance of about three hundred and fifty pupils. The 
teaching is characterized by great thoroughness in the fundamental branches. 

3. Mary Institute, is a very successful girls' and young ladies' school. 
Although a department of the University, it is in a separate building, and 
its connection with other departments is limited to a few of the advanced 
classes, which receive instruction from the professors of the College or 
Polytechnic school. The course of study is quite extended, and in addition 
to an "advanced course," the graduates of Mary Institute have, by a recent 
vote of the directors, free admission to the College and Polytechnic school. 
The Institute is under the superintendence of Professor C. S. Pennellj 
who has been principal for the last thirteen years. The school is, and 
ever has been, very popular, and though its earlier accommodations have 
been doubled, they are still too small to meet the demand. The number 
of pupils is about three hundred. Mary Institute is at present in Lucas Place, 
but it is shortly to be' moved to the University grounds, on Beaumont street. 

3. The College, though of necessity small, has always maintained a high 
standard, and is marked by very careful teaching. Considerable latitude is 
allowed in the choice of studies. LTnusual prominence is given to the studv 
of English classics. ' For the use of the College and Polytechnic students 
there is a well-appointed gymnasivim, in charge of a skillful teacher. The 
College is under the special charge of the Chancellor, assisted by the Regis- 
trar, Professor M. S. Snow. 

4. The Polytechnic School, since its complete, organization, has been 
under the superintendence of Professor C. M. Woodward, Dean. Its 
growth has been slow but sure. The raising of the standards of admission, 
and of promotion after admission, have, of course, been attended with a loss 
of numbers ; but the gain in dignity and value to the remaining students has 
been great. It would be easy to double the number of students by lowering 
the standards, but it would be at the cost of that self-respect which makes a 
connection with the school desirable. The courses of study are six in number 
— five being semi-professional, while the sixth is more general, intended for 



XXIV LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

those who do not desire a professional training, or who look forward to a later 
study of their profession. The semi-professional courses of study are: 
I. Civil engineering. 2. Mechanical engineering. 3. Chemistry. 4. Mining 
and metallurgy. 5. Building and architecture. The excellence of the work 
done in this school has been proved in various ways. Its outfit in apparatus 
and working laboratories is very complete. In mental and manual skill the 
students will bear comparison with the best. St. Louis has reason to be 
proud of its technical school. 

Though possessing separate organizations, the College and Polytechnic 
School are quite intimately connected in their daily programmes, many of 
the exercises being common to students of both departments. In each of 
these departments very generous aid is offered to good students who are really 
in want of assistance. The faculties of the College and Polytechnic School 
include the following actively engaged professors : 

Wm. G. Eliot, D.D., Chancellor and Tileston (i) Professor of Political Ecottomy. 

Abram Litton, M.D., Eliot (2) Professor of Chemistry. 

Calvin S. Pennell, A.M., Br:dge (3) Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy^ 
and Principal of Alary Institute. 

Sylvester Waterhouse, A.M., Collier (4) Professor of Greek. 

C. M. Woodward, A.M., Thayer (5) Professor of Mathematics and Applied Mechanics., 
and Dean of Polytechnic School. 

George E. Jackson, A.M., Professor of Latin. 

Marshall S. Snow, A.M., Professor of History, and Registrar of the College. 

Henry Pomeroy, A.M., Professor of Alathematics and Astronomy. 

William B. Potter, A.M.,E."M., Allen (6) Professor of Mining and Metallurgy. 

Denham Arnold, A.IA., Professor of Physics, and Principal of the Academy. 

Charles A. Smith, C.E., Professor of Civil ajid Mechanical Engineering. 

John H. Jenks, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Instructor in German. 

James K. Hosmer, A.M., Professor of English and German Literature. 

R. Thompson Bond, A.B., Professor of Alathematics. 

Francis E. Nipher, B.Ph., Waytnan Crow (7) Professor of Physics. 

Halsej C. Ives, Artist., Teacher of Free-hand and Mechanical Draxving and Painting. 



5. The St. Loui.s Law School, as might be inferred from the character 
and standing of its faculty, is unsurpassed by any similar school in the United 
States. Nothing more clearly distinguishes the school than the searching 
written examinations to which the candidates for the degree of LL.B. are 
subjected. Exact, critical knowledge of law is aimed at, and loose, shamb- 
ling methods of study meet with no favor. The steady growth of the school 
is evidence at once of its merit and the confidence of the public. The library 
of the Law School is very valuable, and is conveniently arranged in one of the 
pleasantest rooms of the University. 



(i) In honor of Thomas Tileston, Esq., of New York City. 

(2^ In honor of Dr. Wm. G. Eliot. 

(3) In honor of Hon Hudson E. Bridge. 

(4) In honor of Messrs. J. P. and T. F. CoIUer. 

(5) In honor of Nathaniel Thayer, of Boston. 

(6) In honor of Hon. Thomas Allen, of St. Louis. 

(7) In honor of Wayman Crow, of St. Louis. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. XXV 

The Faculty comprises the following : 

Henry Hitchcock, LL.D., Professor of Real Property Law, and Provost of the Law 
School. 

Samuel Treat, A.M., President of La-v Faculty. 

Albert Todd, A.M., Lecturer on the Law of Real Property as Applied to Conveyancing: 

Alexander Martin, A.M., Professor of International Admiralty, Marine Jfisurance and 
Maritime Law. 

Samuel Reber, A.M., Professor of History and Science of Law, Constitutional Law, 
Torts, Equitv and Successions 

John M. Krum, A.M., Lecture/ on Criminal Latv. 

George A. Madill, A.M., Professor of Real Property Laxv. 

George M. Stewart, A.M., Profess rr of Mercantile Latv and Contracts, and Dean of the- 
Law Faculty. 

Chester H. Krum, Esq., Professor of Law, Practice, Pl/adings and Evidence. 

The following is the present Board of Directors of the University, the 
names of those who have been Directors from the beginning being printed 
in small-capitals : 

William G. Eliot, President; Wayman Crow, Vice-President; John M. Krum, 
James Smith, Seth A. Ranlett, Secretary and Treasurer; George Partridge^ 
John R. Shepley, Albert Todd, Henry Hitchcock, James E. Yeatman, Samuel Treat. 
Carlos S. Greeley, Robert Campbell, John P. Collier, John T. Davis, George E. 
Leighton. 

The present property and endowment of the University amounts to not 
less than $750,000, of which $150,000 has been given during the last twa 
years. 



ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 



The St. Louis University in its inception dates back to the territorial history 
of Missouri, and it was one of the earliest educational institutions of high 
rank in the Mississippi Valley. The varying architecture and the striking 
differences in the details of the construction of the new and the old buildings 
connected with it, seem to show the social and artistic advancement of our 
people, and to emphasize to the eye the distinctions between two eras which, 
though not widely separated by time, are yet remote in spirit, spanning, as it 
were, a gulf, from each side of which it looks down upon a different civil- 
ization. The changes which it has witnessed are such as centuries rarely 
accomplish, and yet the recollections of many single lives take in the events 
in its history, from the first effort in its behalf to the present. 

Two squares of ground, on which the University and the buildings attached 
to it are situated, were donated by Jeremiah Conner, in March 1820, to 
Bishop Dubourg, then Catholic Bishop of St. Louis. The donation was 
made for the purpose of founding an institution of learning. It was under 



XXVI LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

the direction of Bishop Dubourg that the cathedral on the corner of Second 
and Market streets was erected, but he was removed to France before the 
University was fully established. Rev. Fathers De Smet, Verhagen, Elet, 
Carroll, Vandevelde and Van Qiiickenbom, all members of the Society of 
Jesus, exerted themselves to secure donations, and in 1829 the first building 
on Christy avenue, forty by fifty feet, and four stories high, was completed, 
and the first session opened on the 2d of November of that year. There 
were at first thirty boarders and one hundred and twenty day scholars. The 
present building situated at the corner of Washington avenue and Ninth 
street, was founded in 1S29, upon a part of the original land donated. When 
the land was first given, it was part of a field, and at some distance from the 
town. In 1S32 it was incorporated, and empowered to confer degrees and 
academical honors in all the learned professions, and generally, "to have 
and enjoy all the powers, rights and privileges exercised by literary institu- 
tions of the same rank." The St. Louis University is a Catholic institution, 
and has consequently always been under the control of that denomination, 
and the learned men who have taught in it have been fathers in the Church. 

In 1835, an exhibition hall, with rooms for apparatus, was erected, the 
building fronting on Washington avenue, nearly opposite Tenth street. In 
1843, the church on the corner of Ninth street and Christy avenue was com- 
pleted, and in 1845, a building for dormitories and an infirmary was erected, 
fronting on Christy avenue, between Tenth and Eleventh streets. 

In 1849, t^^^ Medical College, on Washington avenue, between Tenth and 
Eleventh streets, was purchased, and converted into a study hall and dormi- 
tories for the junior students. The bliilding on the corner of Washington 
avenue and Ninth street was commenced in 1853, ^^^ completed in 1855. 
The exhibition hall of this building is considered one of the finest in the West. 
It is superbly frescoed by the hand of L. Fomarede, a vSt. Louis artist, whose 
name is identified with his home, and the work of whose pencil embellishes 
many of our finest public and private buildings. The last of the buildings 
erected on Ninth street, between Christy avenue and Washington avenue, is 
ninety-five by forty-five feet, and contains twelve fine rooms, a hall and dor- 
mitories for the students. 

The buildings are all of brick, bearing in their exterior evidences of the 
difterent dates of their erection. As Tenth street does not run through, the 
two blocks between Ninth and Eleventh streets may be said to be connected 
together, and the University and accompanying buildings cover about three- 
fourths of the two squares so united. Some of the buildings are remarkable 
for exterior ornamentation, but they have a substantial and commodious 
appearance eminently befitting the purposes to which they are dedicated. 

The museum has been collected and collated with a zeal and care worthy 
of the learned fathers who devoted themselves to the work, and embraces 
specimens from every quarter of the globe. 

The library contains 23,000 volumes, embracing almost every branch of 



ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. XXVll 

literature and science in ancient and modern languages. Here have been 
gathered together the volumes that contain the research and speculation of all 
ages, some of them exceedingly rare and curious, and some whose imprint 
shows that they were among the earliest creations of the art of printing. 

Mr. J. Hagar, writing in 1S55. notices some of the curiosities in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

Among many curious and interesting works, are a theological dictionary, entitled 
" Summa Angelica," by Angelus Clavasis, printed at Alost, Belgium, Julj' 4, 1490; 
also, another work dated in March 1499. Here are the Sermons and Homilies of 
Augustin, printed in 1521 ; also, Cicero's Offices, printed in 1539; "Epitome of Anti- 
quity," printed in 1533, and most beautifully illustrated with medallions. There is also a 
copy of the Sibyline Oracles, printed in Greek and Latin in 1599; several editions of the 
Bible, with beautiful marginal and other illustrations, in various colored inks, printed in 
1556, and down to i6:!S. 

Among the many rare and interesting books found in the library, there is one which, 
from the beauty of its execution, the strength and perfection of its varied coloring and 
illustrations, is well worthy the attention of the curious. It is a Geography of the Earth, 
illustrated with maps and plates of men, animals, birds, and scenes in all the countries 
described, all done in various colored inks, true to nature and accurately portrayed. This 
book was published by Bleauso, at Amsterdam, for subscribers, in eleven large folio 
volumes, in 1662. The type is clear, the paper fine, yet very strong; the maps, even of 
America, very accurate and correct, especially of those portions where the Jesuit fathers 
had their most extensive missions. The names of places, rivers, capes and bays, as now 
on our more accurate knowledge placed upon the best maps, are all found on these ; 
while the coloring seems as fresh and bright as if done last year, instead of nearly two 
hundred years ago. It is said that the edition of this work was absolutely limited to the 
subscription list, and, when the full number of copies had been printed, the whole of the 
plates were destroyed; no extra edition was printed, and hence the great scarcity of this 
beautiful work. 

Over the door of the Ninth street entrance of the main building, is inscribed 
simply, "St. Louis University, Founded A.D. 1S29." The pile represents 
the beneficence of many individuals, and the earnest life-labor of others, dis- 
tinguished alike for their piety and learning. 



CHARLES E. WARE & CO., 

PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS, N. E. CORNER FIFTH AND CHESTNUT STREETS. 



The prompt and generous recognition which our community is always 
ready to accord to thorough knowledge of the business undertaken, united 
with industry, energy, enterprise, and unswerving integrity, is strikingly 
shown in the highly successful cai-eer of the senior partner and founder of this 
firm. Some time during the spring of 1872, Mr. Ware removed to St. Louis 
from Southeastern Missouri, where he had been engaged in editing and pub- 
lishing a newspaper. His first object after reaching this city, was to satisfy 
himself thoroughly, by careful and intelligent observation and inquiry, in 



xxviii Local and commercial. 

what field of enterprise the most promising opening was to be found, and as 
to how he could most effectually utilize the knowledge and experience he had 
previously acquired. A comparatively brief investigation convinced him that 
though there were quite a large mmiber of job printing establishments in the 
city, there was yet room for another one, and that judicious enlargements of 
that business, combined with a close and scrutinizing administration of the 
details of such an enterprise, would materially increase the pecuniary rewards 
ordinarily attached to it, and he at once determined to start in this branch of 
business. Just about this time, he met the late Major Henry Ewing (to 
whom he had letters of introduction) — at that time Treasurer of the '■'■Thnes 
Company" — to whom Mr. Ware explained his plans and purposes. With 
his characteristic insight into character. Major Ewing promptly realized that 
his new acquaintance might become a formidable opponent if not converted 
into a useful and valuable auxiliary, and immediately determined to make him 
the latter, if possible. He therefore vu-ged him to accept a position in the 
Times office, as presenting a more favorable opening than could possibly be 
found in starting a new office for himself. The reasons for svich a course 
■were satisfactory to Mr. Ware, and, acting upon the suggestion of Major 
Ewing, he applied to Hon. Stilson Hutchins, the President of the Coinpany, 
who at once employed him. The zeal, activity and thorough knowledge of 
business displayed by Mr. Ware in his new position, speedily vindicated 
the wisdom of the selection, and the new employe was rapidly advanced 
to the position of superintendent of the departments. This increase of 
responsibility only stimulated his zeal, and by his unremitting watchfulness 
and faithful and able administration — cutting oft' all unnecessary expense, 
guarding against all possible waste or leakage, the job printing and blank 
book department of the Times was made to yield a steady and reliable rev- 
enue, whereas at the time Mr. Ware took charge of it, it was steadily losing 
money for the proprietors. Under the new" administration, greater satisfac- 
tion was given to the old patrons, and large numbers of new ones were 
constantly secured, and the profits of this particular branch of the business 
were steadily and largely augmented. Shortly after the death of Major 
Ewing, Mr. Ware entered into an arrangement wuth the new proprietors, 
Avhereby he leased the entire job printing, blank book, book binding and. 
lithographing department for a term of years, and when the Dispatch sub- 
-sequently removed to the building occupied by the Times^ he purchased the 
entire job printing interest of that paper, including all presses, material, etc., 
thus adding greatly to the already large resources and facilities of the " Pub- 
lishing and Printing House of Charles E. Ware & Co." 

This house is now fully equal to any in the West in all its various depart- 
iments — job and book printing, book binding, engraving, lithographing, the- 
atrical and general show printing and illustrations, etc., etc., — all of which 
they are prepared to contract for upon the most advantageous terms, guaran- 
teeing tbat their work shall not be excelled by any competitor. 



CHAS. E. WARE & CO. 



•MINES, METALS AND ARTS." 



The want of an able and reliable paper in the West, devoted to mining, 
ananufacturing, and other industrial interests, had long been felt, and Mr. 
Ware was repeatedly urged to establish such a periodical in St. Louis. Sev- 
•eral publications had been, and were being, issued from St. Louis and other 
points, which claimed to represent the above interests, but their evident devo- 
tion to personal speculation or dishonest schemes had shaken the public faith 
in the possibility of a paper of that class being successfully or honestly con- 
■ducted. Mr. Ware fully appreciated the obstacles to be overcome before such 
a publication could be made successful or remunerative, and hesitated to 
invest his capital in so uncertain an enterprise. To find a gentleman willing 
and capable of conducting such a paper, and who could bring to it a reputa- 
tion untarnished by speculation in money, lands and stocks, or bogus manu- 
facturing concerns, was next to impossible, and on securing such an editor 
•depended the success of the paper. Mr. Ware having prevailed on Joseph E. 
Ware, a mining engineer of very extensive attainments in his profession, to 
.not only take the editorshij:), but also an interest in the publication, early in 
J874, issued the first number of Mines, Metals and Arts, an eight-page 
■quarto paper, devoted to the practical interests of mining, furnace operations, 
manufactures, technical industry, chemistry, geology, etc., together with 
•various collateral arts and processes relatively dependent. 

The paper from the first issue proved more acceptable as a class jDaper than 
any former publication, and its present popularity is an evidence of the fact 
that no mistake has been made in realizing the wants of the people. 

The strength of the paper and the hold it has obtained on the public 
confidence, is evidenced by the complete failure of numerous antagonistic 
publications since its commencement. 

Many complimentary letters, etc., have been received from all parts of the 
world ; but the opinion of leading gentlemen at home in all the various 
interests advocated by the paper, is embodied and expressed very fully and 
flatteringly to the proprietors in the following letter: 

St. Louis, June 8, 1875. 
Messrs. Ware (Sr' Co., Publishers '■'■ Mines, Melals and Arts'^ : 

We have hailed with pleasure the weekly advent of Mines, Metals and Arts, as 
filling a vacuum long existing and felt. It is no longer a reproach to our great manufac- 
turing and commercial city that it has no journal of reliability as a worthy exponent of 
the wonderful and varied resources of the Mississippi Valley, Mexico and the Southwest. 
We earnestly recommend Mines, Metals and Arts to all interested in mines, or the 
manipulation of their various ores into raw or finished metals. 

We regard your paper as trustworthy in matters pertaining to markets, metals and 
manufacturing and mining properties. Its illustrations of the best methods for the util- 
ization of natural mechanical force, commend it to either the older or newer portions of 
the country. We fully appreciate its devotion to the extension of all transportation inte- 
rests, and its enterprise in bringing before the public, in graphic and candid descriptions, 
the resources of such contiguous countries. States and Territories as can, by well- 
directed enterprise and liberality, be made to foster the enlargement of the manufac- 
turing transportation and supply interests of the city of St. Louis. 



XXX LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL, 

The paper is deserving of the cordial and active support of all parties in any way 
interested or concerned in the objects indicated in its purpose, either as proprietors of 
mines, furnaces and mills, or in the inseparable interests of mechanical, constructive, 
architectural, engineering and technical iidvancement, and, in fact, to all seekers after 
scientific, geological and mineralogical developments, or instructive information. 

R. Sellew & Co., James B. Eads, 

Smith, Beggs & Co., Samuel Gaty, 

Branch, Crookes cv: Co., Thos. Allen, 

Gerard B. Allen ^: Co., William T. Christy, 

Henry T. Blow, Edwin Harrison, 

L. M. Rumsey Si Co., B. W. Lewis 
R. S. Elliott, 

THE "valley monthly." 

In the fullest development of a Western Publishing House, the idea of 
encouraging a higher and worthier form of Western literature was natural, 
and led to the publication, in May 1875, of "Ware's Valley Monthly; 
A Journal of Western Thought and Life." 

For many years the leading minds of the West had been discussing the 
necessity for such a publication. It was universally admitted that Western 
culture, taste and enterprise had never been thoroughly interested in pro- 
ducing or creating a distinctive literature, and the inevitable result had been 
that Western periodicals had never been faithful exponents of the highest 
expressions of Western thought and life. There had been many attempts to 
supply this want, but they always proved short-lived. Indeed, so unfortunate 
had these experiments proved, that the public had become distrustful of all 
such enterprises, regarding them as fore-doomed to certain failure. Monthly 
publications devoted to special interests received sufficient support and 
encouragement to make them self-sustaining, but a monthly magazine of a 
high order of literary merit, which should discuss all interesting topics and 
questions, was considered by all as a doubtful venture, at best. In the light 
of such history, in the face of such facts, and in the midst of an unparalleled 
monetary pressure all over the West, it required no little courage to embark 
upon so bold a scheme of journalism as the Prospectus of Ware's Valley 
Monthly foreshadowed. While the public mind was somewhat startled by 
the boldness of its conception, leading men at once yielded the heartiest 
approval of its ideal. The first ntmiber gave satisfactory assurance that the 
happy ideal had its birth in brains, taste and culture equal to its own reali- 
zation. Subsequent numbers grew upon the public so rapidly, steadily 
improving in litei^ary merit, and opening such rich and racy resources of 
thought and fancy, that, by the close of the first volume, the Valley 
Monthly had reached a profitable circulation, established a high character, 
and gained an influence with the leading minds of the West unequaled by any 
publication in so short a time. The style and character of its mechanical 
make-up was fidly up to its literary excellence, and superior to any similar 
publication in the Mississippi Valley. 



DODD, BROWN * CO. 



The literary reputation of its editor, Rev. VV. M. Leftwich, D.D., who had 
been for over twenty years identified with the Western interests in the pulpit, 
the college and the press, at once secured for the Valley Monthly the confi- 
dence of the public and placed it on the highway to the largest success. 
Dr. Leftwich had been long known to the reading public as an author and 
as a superior magazine writer ; and he was able to bring to his aid in this new 
enterprise an array of literary talent sufficient to make any magazine famous. 



DODD, BROWN & CO. 



Nothing could better illustrate the enormous growth of the business of St. 
Louis and the new channels which commercial activity is opening to trade, 
than the later history and present position of the great dry goods house of 
Dodd, Brown & Co. While the aggregates of each department of trade are 
being yearly swelled to greater proportions, it is noticeable that in all our 
large cities the number of houses does not usually increase. On the con- 
trary, the tendency is toward consolidation. The growing sales and greater 
scope of individual houses, therefore, furnishes us an almost infallible measure 
for estimating the aggregates in each department of trade. The scale on 
which business is now done is unfavorable to small houses. The expense of 
selling a half million dollars' worth of goods is almost as great as that of sell- 
ing a million. The sweeping demands of interior points in makino- their 
purchases also require large stocks from which to fill orders. 

It is necessary, therefore, that the men at the head of such an important 
line of business as that of dry goods, should have the judgment to anticipate 
the wants of their patrons, and the boldness and nerve to execute their con- 
ceptions with steadiness through the continuous fluctuations that sun-ound 
them. 

The House is at the corner of Fifth and St. Charles streets. The Fifth 
street front is one hundred and two and the depth one hundred and thirty-five 
feet. The main front is that on the Fifth street side, that on St. Charles 
being used for the receiving and shipping of freight. The structure presents 
from the street a pleasing and imposing appearance, with its five lofty stories 
and broad plate-glass windows, constructed to give abundant light. 

When, in 1S70, Dodd, Brown & Co. determined on moving to Fifth street 
there were clear-headed men who gravely questioned the soundness of such a 
move. Events, however, have vindicated the wisdom of the chano-e, and 
have shown that the supremacy of Main street could be easily broken. Other 
houses have followed in the lead of this eminent success, until the jobbing 



XXXII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

trade has been so largely transferred as to found a new centre, around which 
every department of trade is rapidly gathering, and which is bound to surpass 
the old one in the facilities which it offers, and in the magnitude of its trans- 
actions. In 1 87 1 the new building, so admirably fitted for its purpose, was 
occupied. 

The Departments. — The whole business is divided into departments, 
each in charge of a competent superintendent, who is charged with the 
responsibility of its details. This is doubtless the basis of that admirable 
system that enables the house to conduct transactions aggregating over six 
million dollars annually with all the smoothness and precision of a finished 
piece of machinery. An apt comparison would be the movements of an 
army, in which discipline makes it as easy to command ten thousand men as 
a hundred. The various departments are lettered, and run through the 
alphabet from A to H inclusive, each representing a distinctive class of goods. 

The Basement. — This extends under the sidewalk on Fifth street, and on 
St. Charles street, and under the alley in the rear, making its size about one 
hundred and twenty by one hundred and fifty feet. At the St. Charles street 
side is an iron slide, on which goods are received, boxes and bales are run 
down. This has been found the most rapid and convenient means for lower- 
ing goods into the basement, and, its usefulness once determined, it would be 
impossible to replace it with any equally valuable device. Under the alley is 
situated a safety-boiler, which furnishes the power for the three elevators, 
and also heats the building. The boiler is of the pattern known as "Root's 
Patent," and is composed of a series of tubes. It is absolutely safe, as the 
worst accident that could possibly happen would be the bursting of a tube, 
which would do no damage, and could be readily replaced. Two freight 
elevators and one passenger elevator, each provided with its separate engine, 
are in constant employment. From the basement, where all packages are 
received, they are distributed by the elevators to their appropriate depart- 
ments. • The two departments A and B are in the basement. A comprises 
flannels and blankets ; B comprises linens, white goods and quilts. The 
exhibition and sales tables are on the Fifth street side, where there is a per- 
fect and uniform light. A portion of the basement is fenced oft', and there 
are stored duplicates in flannels. Besides this storage capacity, two large 
warehouses on Main street are used for storing stock until it is needed in the 
departments. 

The First or Main Floor. — This is a spacious and elegant room, with a 
high ceiling, supported by graceful columns, and contains the oflices and two 
departments. Department C takes in about one-half of this floor, and com- 
prises all classes of domestic and imported dress goods. Here, in closely 
piled cases, and on tables, we see every variety and grade of dress goods that 
are to fill the shelves and counters of the retail stores in every part of the vast 
valley drained by the Mississippi. 

Department D has about half the first floor not taken up by the oflices, and 



DODI), RROWN A CO. XXXTTI 

consists of calicoes, brown and bleached domestic, ticking, denims, stripes, 
checks and kindred fabrics. 

The offices are on the St. Charles street side and at the left as we enter 
through the broad entrance on Fifth street. The half partitions are of massive 
black w^alnut, gracefully carved and ornamented, and surrounded by ground 
glass in walnut panels. 

The Second Floor. — This is quickly reached by stepping into the cab of 
the passenger elevator, when we find ourselves in a moment transferred to 
another scene of confusion, and among goods of another class. Here are 
departments E and F. The goods in department E are "piece goods," such 
as jeans, cassimeres and cloths, and the line comprises every grade and price 
of foreign and domestic manufacture, suited to each class of trade. About 
two-thirds of the floor is occupied by this one department, which also includes 
linings, repellants and cottonades. 

Department F takes up the remainder of the floor. This comprises shawls 
and skirts, through all the gradations that home and foreign looms produce. 
Again entering the elevator cab we reach : 

The Third Floor. — This is taken up by department G, which comprises 
that very wide range of goods that, in our nomenclature, comes under the 
head of "notions." To enter into any description or enumeration of each of 
the knick-knacks, ornaments, or useful articles which are displayed on this 
floor would be futile, yet some of its features may be hastily sketched, and a 
fair idea given of the whole. There are several subdivisions in this depart- 
ment, all under the control of one superintendent. Pins and needles, thread 
and buttons, constitute one division. Jewelry and fancy imported goods 
another. This shows a wide diversity of knick-knacks, and is constantly 
changing to keep up with the dei*nands of the time. The articles that are 
eagerly sought one season are without demand the next, and newer ingenious 
ornaments or trifles take their place. Beaded belts, and cologne bottles satir- 
izing the "crusaders" or the "grangers," are examples of the exciting and 
ever-shifting demands in this line. 

Another class takes in that line of goods that forms the promiscuous stock 
of drug stores, such as combs, brushes and cosmetics. Everything that would 
be seen on the shelves or in the show-cases of a well-appointed drug store, 
except the medicines, is here marshalled forth in tempting array. 

Ribbons and laces, ruches, and the range of goods necessary to stock a 
complete millinery establishment, form another class. In this line, this house 
stands out like an importing house anticipating the trade. The orders go in to 
the manufacturers twelve months in advance of the season, when fashion is 
to fix her seal upon fabrics that employ the looms of the manufacturers. 
When the proper season arrives the goods are opened, put upon the market, 
and the fashion and the demand follow. 

The class which takes in Indian goods is a very interesting one, and in the 
main, reflects credit upon Mr. Lo for his good judgment and evident deter- 



XXXIV LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

mination to have the genuine article if it is procurable. The beads are by no 
means the cheapest variety, and the ornaments are all substantial and calcu- 
lated to stand hard wear. The sashes are of good quality, and the w^oolen 
yarns the very finest and strongest that can be procured ; though gorgeous in 
color. The different varieties of "wampum " are also shown as one of the 
curiosities in this class. The "wampum Moon" is indeed a beautiful bunch 
of shells, and is current coin with the Indians, at a valuation of two dollars 
and a half. 

The Fourth Floor. — This is department H, one that takes in many 
classes of goods. Window and table furniture, gloves, hosiery, knit goods, 
ladies' and gentlemen's underwear, and woolen yarns, are among the classes 
in this department. 

The glove stock is immense, ranging through buckskin and woolen, to kids 
of all qualities. In the article of kids, the house has a specialty in the famous 
" Bajou " glove, justly esteemed throughout the United States. 

Hand-made worsted goods for ladies, children and infants' wear, from 
little caps up to full-sized cloaks, and ladies' furnishing goods and under- 
clothing come in this department. 

In gentlemen's shirts, the house has the agency for the celebrated Atkinson 
shirt, every one of which is warranted and equal to the best custom work. 
In overshirts the stock is immense, ranging through every quality and price. 
Woolen yarn is another article here that is largely handled, the entire pro- 
duction of several mills passing thi-ough the hands of this house. 

The Fifth Floor. — This is the packing-room, which presents a scene of 
activity and clamor. The entry clerks, bill clerks, sellers and packers make 
a racket that would disturb a nervous man. Everything moves on, however, 
with the regularity of clock-work, and the noise is probably not disproportion- 
ate to the labor of handling, entering and verifying over a million dollars' 
worth of goods in a single month. 

General Remarks. — We have thus given a passing sketch of one of the 
great establishments of our city. The energy and vigor that have built up 
an immense trade throughout the section drained by the Mississippi River 
and tributaries, and the ability that now controls and directs it, are proper 
subjects for the pride of every friend of St. Louis. The intimate and 
extended commercial relations which a house of such magnitude builds up 
and fosters, bring their benefits to every industry and business within our 
limits. By carrying a stock adequate to all the demands of the interior, 
country merchants are saved the expense and time involved in a trip to 
New York. Much as that boasted metropolis affects to sneer at the preten- 
sions of the West, her merchants are learning that they have to contend with 
rivals who cannot be safely ignored, because they are each day winning 
important victories. In this struggle that is surely establishing a Western 
centre, the energy and sagacity that control the house we have briefly 
attempted to picture, are conspicuously exerting great influence. 




^^/^T'^^c^^ 



R. SEI.LEW & CO. 



R. SELLEW & CO., 

METALS, AND MANUFACTURER'S SUPPLIES. 



In comparing- the St. Louis of the past with the St. Louis of to-da}^, there 
are many individual facts which are in themselves eloquent with the whole 
great change. In general trade, the shiftings of popular favor and the varying 
fortunes of individuals show successive growth and decay, even while the 
volume of business goes on, swelling up a more magnificent total. When, 
however, we come to consider specialties, the demand for which is in each 
section moderate, though constant, and when depots for their supply can only 
exist at great distributing points, the operations of a house dealing in the 
goods included in the specialty become of great value as a measure of the 
improvement of the interior. In 1847, Mr. Ralph Sellew, then a partner with 
his brothers in the metal trade in Cincinnati, determined upon opening a 
branch house in St. Louis. He had previously made up his mind that he 
would start somewhere, and a careful review convinced him that St. Louis 
was the most desirable point. Even then he felt confident that there was a 
great future before this city, though the improvement has been even more 
rapid than he thought possible. On the i6th of March 1847, he made the 
experiment of opening a house exclusively for the sale of metals and kindred 
goods. Though he felt entirely secure as to success, there were not wanting 
those who predicted that he w^ovdd find too little support for such a specialty. 
Trade then came principally from the Upper Missouri and the Upper Missis- 
sippi. On the Missouri, St. Joseph was the extreme limit. Now the house 
ships goods to Salt Lake, and even into Idaho. The northern and southern 
limits of its trade are only bounded by the British possessions and the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

At its inception, the capital invested in the business was probably not far 
from $10,000, and the first year's sales about $30,000. From that time its 
growth was constant and steady, until the yearly aggregate of its transactions 
reached one and a quarter million dollars. Thus we see that in a period of 
twenty-eight years the business has been multiplied by forty, a growth about 
three times that of the city itself. Yet, when we reflect that this increase is 
representative not only of the city, but of the outlying country which comes 
here to trade, the proportion is very fairly preserved. Since then what 
changes have occurred, and how the iron roads have reached into rich sec- 
tions that have been redeemed from savagery ! 

At that time the field was not occupied here, although most all stove manu- 
facturers and dealers carried, to a limited degree, a stock suitable for tinners' 
use. Mr. Sellew had learned the business in all its ramifications in the most 



XXXVI LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

exact of all schools — that of experience — and he started out to supply every- 
thhig that a tinner needed in the prosecution of his business. In addition to 
the trade thus covered, most all manufacturers, founders, and metal workers 
especially, need a certain amount of such metals as do not enter into general 
stocks, and which are entirely distinct from the hardware trade. An enu- 
meration of the leading staples includes: Tin, in all its forms; copper, in 
ingots, sheets and holts ; brass, antimony, zinc and German silver ; solder, 
and wire of all the different metals. To these are added, tinners' and other 
metal workers' tools, the prepared metals and alloys which they require, and 
the stamped, or half manufactured, goods which have been cheaply wrought 
into form by machinery, and which pack closely for shipment, and only need 
putting together at their destination. 

A Look Through the House. — When Mr. Sellew made his venture, he 
was frankly told by men whose judgment in most matters was entitled to 
respect, that he could not make a successful business of an exclusive trade in 
metals. He, however, had more faith in his own opinion than in Ihat of any 
one else, and opened business in a little store, twenty feet wide by seventy 
feet deep. The present house, 805 North Main street, was built by him, and 
is the property of R. Sellew & Co. In its construction, the peculiarities of 
the business were kept steadily in mind, and it was supplied with every con- 
venience that experience, through a long series of years, had suggested. It 
is thirty-seven and a half feet front by one hundred and thirty-eight feet in 
depth, and four stories in height, with a basement. The rear opens on 
Waddingham street, from which the shipping and receiving are done. An 
elevator, operated by a continuous shaft running through the block, makes 
each of the floors equally available for business. 

Ground Floor and Basement. — Entering from the street, the shipping 
office is on the right. Passing back, the floor is piled in the center and on its 
sides with sheet-iron and the various other metals, in such amount, that, were 
it not for special construction it would be unable to sustain the weight. The 
goods hen^ are such as require no packing for shipment. They are, in part, 
American and Russian sheet-iron, galvanized and common sheet-iron, and 
all the other metals and alloys used by manufacturers. The basement is a 
stronger room for heavy goods, and for some slight manufacturing, which 
may become necessary for the prompt and proper filling of orders. The 
floor is cemented as perfectly as the pavement of a well-constructed sidewalk, 
and it is provided with every convenience for storage and handling. 

The Second Floor. — In the front of the second floor are the ofiice and 
the sample-room, the office on the right and the other on the left as we turn 
fi"om the ascent by the stairway which leads there. The sample-room shows 
every style and size of the various classes of goods scattered through the 
house, and saves buyers the trouble of going through the establishment to 
make their selections. Pans and tinware, formerly composed of numbers 
of pieces soldered together, are now stamped and spun up in one solid 



11. SELLEVV A CO. XXXVll 

piece, and then recoated in melted tin, making a solid utensil more sub- 
stantial, and far more durable, than anything produced a few years since. 
Stove furniture of every description, complete or in sections for assembling 
and soldering by the purchaser, are exhibited in every variety. In addition 
to the porcelain-lined utensils, now so common and so desirable, there are 
shown a class of goods manufactured here, called granite ware. It is made 
into stew-pans and cooking utensils, and consists of a sheet-iron body covered 
with a gray porcelain inside and out. They are tough beyond description, 
and stand any amount of heat. As they are cheap, the improvement is a 
very valuable one. Housekeeping goods, such as would be appropriate in a 
pretentiously-stocked tin store, are also shown, japanned or otherwise orna- 
mented. Tinner's tools, elaborate affairs, for cutting, folding, and otherwise 
shaping sheet metal, are represented in the best of these articles yet produced. 
They cut and form tin with the same apparent ease as if it were paper. 
An enumeration of articles would be impossible within ordinary limits, as 
the house is obliged to issue for that purpose an illustrated catalogue. 

Third and Fourth Floors. — The third floor is the packing-room, and is 
also the storage-room for the small traps, thus making the assembling of an 
order as convenient as possible. Stove furniture, in sections admitting of 
close packing, is also stored here, together with tinware, in the various 
forms with which we are familiar. It is notable that most of this is solid, 
without seam of any kind. Brass and copper kettles of all sizes, and in 
solid metal and planished copper, tinned on one side, for cutting into stove 
furniture, each shows some prominence in this department. 

Thus, from basement to roof, it is attempted to give, not a perfect picture, 
but a glance that shall convey some idea of the whole, of an establishment 
which has no rival here, and which, in its distinctive line, is representative 
of the growth of St. Louis, and characteristic of her commercial spirit. It 
was woven out of the active and persevering brain of its founder, Mr. Ralph 
Sellew, who became sole proprietor about 1849, by an arrangement with 
his brother, who retained the Cincinnati house and left this to him. In 1866, 
with a long and successful business career behind him, Mr. Sellew took in 
two younger men as partners, and the firm-name became R. Sellew & Co. 
St. Louis may well be proud of a house that so well upholds her reputation 
for fair and conscientious dealing, and that pushes out its arms of trade so 
energetically in every direction. 



XXXVIIl • LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



PETTES & LEATHE. 



No establishment in a city more accurately measures the growth of retine- 
ment and taste, than those which handle the productions of art and supply 
the requirements of artists. Private enterprise must here, as elsewhere, lay 
the foundation and patiently work out its expected fulfillment. In time, such 
establishments come to be regarded as public institutions ; citizens point to 
them with pride as evidence of their city's intelligence and wealth, and stran- 
gei'S find in them a centre of attraction. Of the several houses of this descrip- 
tion which St. Louis can boast, the greater part of them confine their opera- 
tions to the more necessary and useful articles of life. Of the few that have 
based their trade upon the testhetic culture and liberal taste of the West, 
Pettes & Leathe stand prominent, and their increasing prosperity, from 
year to year, indicates the advancement of our people in a higher civiliza- 
tion. That marked prosperity is, indeed, one of the most hopeful signs 
of the times ; it indicates a present that is far from being selfish, and fore- 
shadows a future glowing with a grace from which all that is sordid and 
ignoble has been eliminated. It is not alone those who are able to buy the 
most costly of such works, who are elevated by their influence. While on 
exhibition, they form an attraction for the thousands who daily throng our 
thoroughfares, spreading a kindly and educating influence among all classes 
of society, and touching with a more delicate light the home where art suc- 
ceeds to profusion. 

In the year i860, Henry Pettes and S. H. Leathe commenced business on 
Fourth street, in what was known as "The Ten Buildings." They purposed 
dealing in artists' materials, looking-glasses, jDicture-frames and pictures of 
the higher class. At that time it was regarded as a doubtful experiment, as 
few of our citizens were patrons of works of art, and they were accustomed 
to send to New York and other Eastern cities for such works as formed the 
decorations of their homes. The course of the new firm was one of hardship 
and difliculty, and it required a considerable expenditure of money and much 
patience and labor to convince the people of this section that their wants 
could be supplied at home. The desired result was, however, accomplished, 
and the enterprise of the new firm was rewarded with a satisfactory result on 
the first year's business. With increasing means and growing trade, they 
became the patrons of the most celebrated and the most deserving of the 
artists in this country and in Europe, and placed rare and meritorious works 
in their exhibition-rooms for the public to study or to purchase. 

They early discovered that the exhibition of choice works familiarized the 
people with them, educated popular taste, and created a demand for them. 

About the year 1S64 they formed extensive European connections, and 



PETTES A- LEATHE. XXXIX 

commenced importing upon an extensive scale, choice paintings, engravings 
and French plate and sheet glass. In the latter article, their transactions are 
more considerable perhaps than those of any other house west of the Atlantic 
seaboard. They have made the business of French plate glass profitable 
principally through their skillful handling of it in transit, and in putting 
it in place, as they have done in some of the most lofty and pretentious 
structures in our city. In fine mirrors, window cornices, carved walnut 
mantel-pieces and pier glasses they have secured an enviable distinction, 
and they can point to the decorations of our leading hotels and homes of our 
opulent and critical citizens, as furnishing evidences of the taste and resources 
of their establishment. 

The old location on Fourth street became too restricted for the business, 
and this present year they erected for themselves a spacious and elegant build- 
ing at 606 and 608 Washington avenue, opposite the new Lindell Hotel. 
Their house runs entirely through to St. Charles street, where their numbers 
are 607 and 609. The building has a front of fifty-four feet on each street, 
and is one hundred and fifty feet deep, and furnished with every appliance 
that the needs of the business have thus far suggested. A hydraulic elevator 
and fire apparatus on each floor are among the conveniences that have been 
introduced. 

The first or main floor contains the ofiices, samples of artists' material, and 
works of art of all descriptions arranged in attractive display. On the second 
floor are the mirror and frame departments on the most extensive scale. The 
third floor is occupied for the storage of the stock of French plate glass, which 
is such an important and heavy trade. The fourth floor is a manufacturing 
room where frame-making and gilding is carried on, on a scale commensurate 
with the business it has to supply. 

The clerks and workmen employed number about fifty. The house imports 
direct Winsor and Newton's celebrated goods. These are the subjects of a 
separate catalogue, and embrace every article required by the artist in oil, 
water colors, crayon or pencil. 

The art gallery, measuring fifty by thirty feet, with ample sky-lights, is the 
most beautiful room of its kind in the country. A wainscoting, handsomely 
laid out in French walnut panels, extends around the walls, which are hung 
with maroon drapery. The floor is laid with red cherry, altogether forming, 
with the fine pictures contained therein, a sight which must be seen to be 
appreciated. This was once a feature merely incident to the business, but has 
now grown into one of the richest and most attractive exhibitions, where all 
are free to look and admire one of the rarest and most valuable collections 
anywhere to be seen, each of the pictures carefully arranged with reference 
to light to bring out the best eflects. 

Thus we see that from an unpretentious beginning has grown an establish- 
ment of the widest and most beneficent influence. In its correspondence it 
reaches from the artist to the patron, and brings them practicallv together in 



XL LOCAI, AND COMMERCIAL. 

an intercourse for mutual good. On the one hand refinement and taste, and 
on the other the busy brain and hand weaving out the subtle creations through 
which man grows purer and stronger. It is right that such an establishment 
should be a great business success. Were it otherwise, our public would have 
less to hope for, and be less worthy of a future of beauty as well as of 
strength. 



THE EXCELSIOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY. 



The title of this Company is no misnomer. In everything that gives 
strength and stability and scope to a business, it is as firmly established as 
anything of human construction can be, and its lofty position seems to act 
only as an incentive to its managers, urging them on to still greater enterprise 
and endeavor. The basis of the business is the manufacture of stoves, but 
upon this as a foundation, has been erected a superstructure vs^ith almost 
immeasurable ramifications. The business now includes everything that is 
to be found in a stove store or tin shop. In the hands of able and enterpris- 
ing men, this specialty has grown to a magnitude that can be but faintly 
appreciated by those who have not been at the trouble of weighing its influ- 
ence in the trade operations of the city. 

The Excelsior Manufacturing Company is the pioneer in this important 
industry. As early as 1849, they made between six and seven hundred 
stoves, melting for that purpose about sixty tons of pig-iron from Ohio. 
The succeeding year they made nearly six thousand, and it was then that 
they took up their well-known location on Main street, where, after a fourth 
of a centurv of such success as rarely attends business enterprise, they have 
erected a new building, that is one of the most spacious and ornamental on 
the street. The new building has a front of eighty-four feet on Main street, 
and a depth of one hundred and sixteen feet, running through to Commercial 
street. On Main street it is five stories in height, and from Commercial 
street six, with a basement below for boilers and engine for the elevator. The 
offices front Main street on the first floor. This is a light and attractive room, 
eighteen feet in height. A vault, for the preservation of books and papers 
in case of fire, is one of the most massive of its kind in the city. Without 
attempting to enter into a description of the classifications of the departments, 
it is sufficient to say that the numbei'less articles, including stoves of diftei-ent 
patterns, are so arranged as to give buyers an exact sample of each article in 
the stock, on a floor space that aggregates an acre and a half. 



h:xcelsi()r manukactukino company. XLl 

The foundry, which covers an area of four and a half acres in the northern 
part of the city, gives constant employment to about three hundred and fifty- 
men. Through the financial convulsions and wide-spread distrust of the 
past two years, they have not discharged a workman or curtailed their 
production. This fact shows, as no other could, that the demand for the 
stoves of the Company is founded upon merit, and upon a fixed popular con- 
ception of their superiority. The amount of metal now daily melted is over 
forty tons, a consumption greater, it is believed, than that of any other stove 
manufacturing company in the United States. On the first day of January 
1875 the books of the Company showed that they had produced for the homes 
of the people 608,395 stoves. Of this number 353,000 were Charter Oaks. 
From these figures is becomes evident that one thirtieth of the whole popu- 
lation of the United States are fed from the Charter Oak stove. 

It is to Mr. Giles F. Filley that the highest credit is due in connection 
with the development of this great industry. He it was who saw the magni- 
tude of the demand that must surely come, and who, with prophetic foresight 
provided for supply upon a scale that should make a national reputation, not 
only in the magnitude of the business, but in the excellence of the product. 

The patterns first adopted were such as embodied the best principles of 
stove construction, and combined convenience and economy. Since that 
early time each detail of the manufacture has received constant and careful 
attention, and such modifications have been introduced as the exacting nature 
of the demand and progress of the art led on to. It was, fortunate for the 
establishment, and for our city, that the principles of construction first laid 
down were such as all subsequent experience has approved. Hence the 
modifications that have followed have been those of detail simply, and the 
names and excellencies of the productions of the Company have become 
familiar to the households of the land. To the superiority thus based have 
been added conscientious manufacture, a peculiar adaptability of Missouri 
iron and sand for the purpose, and comprehensive and liberal management. 

Its influence upon the trade and prosperity of our city is one of the very 
highest moment. With its thousands of customers scattered through various 
sections of our country, it holds intimate and profitable relations, and estab- 
lishes a high character for the mechanical skill and commercial spirit of 
St. Louis. 



XLII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



COLLIER WHITE LEAD WORKS. 



LEAD IN MISSOURI AND ITS MANUFACTURE IN ST. LOUIS. 



Among the various sources of wealth in Missouri, the production of lead 
has always, from an early period, had some prominence. The increase in its 
production was, until the last few years, in about equal proportion with her 
other advancement. Discoveries of very rich mines, however, have of late 
rapidly succeeded each other, and the increase in mining has been very 
marked under the healthful stimulus afforded. In its receipts of domestic 
lead, St. Louis is now the leading city in the United States. As a pig lead 
market, she is now excelled in magnitude only by New York, and from the 
rapid advances which she is making, it may be safely assumed that it will 
require but a few years more to place her in the lead. In domestic lead, the 
receipts at St. Louis are greater than those at New York, and the statistics 
show that two-thirds of the entire lead product of the country is handled here. 
The production from the mines in Missouri is now equal to that from all the 
other States and Territories combined, a fact which draws the attention of 
consumers to St. Louis, and makes her one of the great distributing points, 
and one of the best markets not only for pig lead, but for many of the manu- 
factured products from the pig metal. 

White Lead. — One of the most important of the forms into which lead is 
manufactured, a form that adds materially to the value of the raw material, 
one that is in demand in every section, and in all the mechanical arts, is the 
pigment known by the name of " White Lead." When this industry was 
first introduced here, the lead used was j^rincipally imported, but the large 
production of soft or corroding lead in Missouri has made its use for this pur- 
pose almost exclusive, and given St. Louis manufacturers advantages which 
preclude Eastern competition. The process of manufacture is one that has in 
its general outline remained the same for hundreds of years. Of the three 
methods known as the Dutch, English and French, the first is the one 
employed in this country. Briefly, it consists in the corrosion of the lead 
with acetic acid — common vinegar. The details of the manufacture and 
the machinery employed vary more or less in each establishment, the object 
as in all manufacturing,, is to produce as perfect an article as possible with the 
least expenditure of manual labor. 

The pig metal is first cast into what are termed ''buckles." These are 
circular plates of lead with perforations of varying form, so arranged as to 
permit the fumes of the acid to pass through and around them, and to expose 
the greatest possible surface to corrosion. The buckles are then loosely 
packed in earthern pots with acetic acid in the bottom, about ten pounds of 



COKLIElt WHITE LEAD COMPANY. XMll 

lead to each pot, so elevated as not to touch the acid and yet be exposed to its 
fumes as it evaporates. The pots are then packed in stable manure, which, 
by its gentle warmth, evaporates the acid, and at the expiration of about three 
months has converted the metal into a carbonate. This is the "white lead " 
of commerce, w^hich has then to be ground and bolted, washed free from 
impurities, and packed in appropriate form for painter's use. 

It will be seen that the operation is one that might be carried on in the 
most primitive manner, and that the farmer, were he so disposed, could 
corrode lead in his own dunghill and grind it up in an iron mortar. Yet, for 
him to do so, would be a step in the same direction as if he followed the 
Indian method of agriculture and bruised the grain for food between flat 
stones. 

Many of the factories for the production of white lead have machinery 
costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, which enables them to do their 
work with precision, and to produce enough to make their brands familiar 
through large sections of country. Not only is this so, but they secure a 
uniformity of product that gives the purchaser assurance that the same brand 
will be a uniform article. 

Between forty-five and fifty thousand tons of white lead are now annually 
produced in the United States. Of this whole amount, over one-fourth is 
the product of St. Louis alone. The magnitude of the production here has 
given a remarkable breadth and high standing to the business, and the 
uniformly high character of the goods has popularized many of the brands. 

The Collier White Lead and Oil Company is the leading representative of 
a business that is not only already great, but w^hich is strengthening and 
expanding with each year, and which rests upon a foundation of — lead. 
Its inception dates back to 1837, when Dr. Reed commenced the business in 
a small way. The honor of its first successful development, however, may 
be said to be due to Hon. Henry T. Blow and Joseph Charless. These gen- 
tlemen had for some 3ears run the White Lead works as an auxiliary of their 
drug business, when, in 1844, ^^- Blow retired from the drug business and 
devoted his attention to the works alone. 

In 1S50 they were organized as an incorporated company. Mr. Blow was 
the first president of the company. He held the position until 1S61, when he 
resigned, and Colonel Thomas Richeson was elected his successor, and has 
since remained its president. Colonel Richeson's connection with the works 
dates back to the time when Mr. Blow first started them as an independent 
enterprise, a period exceeding thirty years. He is now the soul and spirit, 
the watchful directing force, that guides the policy and operations of one of 
the great establishments of St. Louis. He is a direct and practical man, and 
in his careful supervision has been the inventor of several appliances which 
cheapen production and contribute to the comfort of the men. To his indus- 
try, sagacity and long practical experience may be traced, in a great measure, 
the commanding influence and success which the works now^ enjoy. The 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



improvements introduced under his administration are such as facilitate 
manufacture, and one of them, by conveying the ground lead by machinery, 
saves the w^orkmen from the danger of inhaling the poisonous dust. 

The corroding pens cover half a block on Clark avenue, extending along 
the whole front, from Ninth to Tenth streets. The w^orks proper have a 
front of one hundred and eighty feet on Clark avenue above Tenth street, and 
a depth of one hundred and thirty-five feet to the alley. Six steam engines, 
with an aggregate of four hundred horse-power, are in continuous operation. 
One hundred and fifty hands are employed, at a cost of $3,500 per week, at 
an aggregate of $130,000 for a full operating year. 

The articles manufactured are, white lead, red lead, litharge, linseed oil 
and castor oil. The capital stock is $700,000, and the annual sales $1,200,000. 
The annual production of the different articles is as follows : 4,000 tons white 
lead ground in oil, 200,000 pounds red lead, 200,000 pounds litharge, 300,000 
gallons linseed oil. 100,000 gallons castor oil. 

The improvements that have been introduced into the interior arrangement 
are of the highest importance, both in cheapening production and in securing 
the health and comfort of the workmen. As the establishment manufactures 
its own linseed oil, the department for that purpose is one of the leading- 
ones. The capacity for storage for the seed is about a hundred and twenty 
thousand bushels, and it is conveyed precisely where wanted by means of 
conveyors, operating like an endless screw. After the grinding and ''mill- 
ing" the pressing is done by eight hydraulic presses, the full capacity of 
which is about six hundred bushels in twenty-four hours. 

In the drying of the lead, the improvements introduced have been the 
subject of many experiments before the results were in all respects satis- 
factory. Colonel Richeson gave this department much deep and careful 
study before he could devise a plan that combined both economy and comfort. 
As now conducted, the drying is done on rotary tables, heated by steam 
from the boilers. To reduce the temperature of the room and to carry oft' 
the particles of lead that rise in the form of dust, an upward draft is created 
by means of a Sturtevant blower. This is run at a high rate of speed, 
drawing the hot air and the particles of lead up through funnels placed over 
the points where the dust rises, and driving the current to a distant and 
elevated part of the building. The effectiveness of the work of the fan in 
purifying the air is shown in the amount of deposit at the outlet. This 
deposit amounts to almost a thousand pounds in twenty-four hours. Were 
it not drawn off' in this manner, it would load the air in which the workmen 
live, and necessitate the wearing of filters over the mouth and nose. As it 
now is, however, the work is hardly more disagreeable or deleterious than 
many other manufacturing operations that have never been regarded as 
objectionable. Thus the intelligent use of machinery sweeps away another of 
the unhealthful employments, and Colonel Richeson is entitled to the credit 
for the liberality and activity and ingenuity that put it in operation. 



rill<; PACKING BUSINESS. 



The acetic acid used is made by the Company, and all of their own cooper- 
age to a value of sixty thousand dollars annually. 

Throughout the vast territory w^est of the AUeghanies the brands of this 
Company are knov^'n, and they are now becoming popular in the East, where 
the best quality of lead is desired. The extent of the establishment, which 
places each detail of .the business in all its ramifications under the same man- 
agement, gives their guarantee an added value, as everything is of their own 
production. The brand of strictly "prime white lead" is known to be 
precisely what it purports to be, and as such, meets with a constant and 
increasing demand. In Western and Southern trade, Eastern manufacturers 
are effectually precluded from competition by reason of the facilities which 
make production here cheaper than with them. 



THE PACKING BUSINESS. 



The packing business of St. Louis forms one of the most impoi"tant branches 
of the trade of the city, as the figures below demonstrate. The amount of 
capital represents in most instances the fixed capital, or amount invested in 
buildings and appliances for conducting the business : 



NAME OF COMPANY. 



Henry Ames & Co 

Hamilton & Bartle 

Maxwell, Scaling & Mulhall 

Wm. N. McQueen, ' . . 

L. Ashbrook & Co 

Francis Whittaker & Sons.. 

Richardson & Co 

James Reillej & Co 

George E. Finch 

Conrad & Louis Rose 

George Bayha & Co 

L. W. Patterson 

Fletcher & Co 

Muldoon & Sharp 



$750,000 
300,000 
200,000 
130,000 
700,000 

150,000 



150,000 

100,000 

60,000 



CAPACITY 
PER DAY. 



1800 



2000 
2300 



4000 



1500 
1500 



MEN 
EMPLOYED. 



200 

100 

180 

260 

75 

30 

125 



WEEKLY 
WAGES. 



AGGRBGATE 
YEARLY 

BUSINESS. 



J2,000 $3,000,000 

2,500,000 

1,750 2,000,000 

1,200 i 3,000,000 

1,500 I 1,100,000 



1,500 



650 

300 

1,600 



1,750,000 

1,000,000 
500,000 
400,000 



XLVI LOCAL ANB COMMERCIAL. 



EUGENE JACCARD & CO. 



Situate on the corner of the two most fashionable promenades of St. Louis, 
stands an edifice worthy of its location and purpose. It is the silverware 
and jewehy establishment of Eugene Jaccard & Co. Fronting one hundred 
feet on Olive and fifty feet on Fifth street, built of Athens marble, five 
stories in height, and in a style of architecture commanding and graceful, it 
is the leading ornament of one of the most central and valuable blocks in 
city. From the time of its completion it has been a source of pride to our 
citizens, and is pointed out to strangers as worthy, in both exterior and 
interior, of far more than the usual attention bestowed upon leading estab- 
lishments. From the pavement to the pleasing lines of the mansard roof, 
surmounted by an illuminated clock, the effect is imposing and beautiful. 
The entire cost of this building, with the ground that it covers, exceeded 
three hundred thousand dollars. 

The jewelry trade in St. Louis is a more important and extended one than 
in more northern cities. In a northern climate, where the rigors of winter 
make furs almost indispensable, they become the most valued and cherished 
article of adornment, but vmder the influence of a more generous sun, I'urs 
are cumbersome, except for brief and uncertain seasons, and their cost is 
disproportioned to their utility. Yet taste will assert itself under all circum- 
stances, and artistic designs in the precious metals, rare cameos and costly 
gems, become the objects of fashion and display'. In St. Louis, the demand 
is principally for articles of the highest purity and elegance, and the scope of 
country to be supplied is very wide in extent. 

Entering this costly temple of taste from either Fifth or Olive street, we 
find ourselves in a room in which the light is reflected back on every side 
from the choicest productions of the work-shop, in the noble metals and 
from the gems from mines and seas that blaze with fier}' or with mellow 
light in the cases on the tables. The lofty frescoed ceiling, the marble tessel- 
lated floor, the graceful columns, the cases on the walls and on the tables, 
show that we are looking upon a collection that has taxed the resources of 
nature and of art in every portion of the world. The basement, with vaults, 
rests upon a solid stone foundation, and is perfectly adapted to its purposes. 
It is, however, on the first or main floor that the attraction is to be found. 
Here, on a level with the street, along which drifts a ceaseless human tide, 
are exposed the articles that are to adorn the homes and persons of the people 
of a wide section. 

Nothing better illustrates the esthetic taste than the ornaments of a people. 
In furniture, refinement does away with gaudy colors and introduces rich 
carving and quaint designs. In personal adornment, civilization learns to 



KUCiKXK JACCAKD \- CO. XLVII 

discard the barbaric liands and hoops of native ore that obtain among primi- 
tive tribes, and introduces gems, cameos and artistic creations that reflect the 
genius of a nation and enshrine the poetry, art and passion of their noblest 
conceptions. 

The fitting up and fixtures of the store alone cost thirty-five thousand dollars, 
svu'passing any similar establishment in the West. Four doors admit visitors 
— two on Olive street, and one on Fifth street, arid one in the corner, the 
facade. Entering this establishment seems like entering the gorgeous saloons 
of the enchanted palaces of Aladdin's fairyland. Corinthian pillars support 
a ceiling frescoed in lovely tints. Plate-glass show-cases, with walnut frames, 
carved in arabesque designs, encase pyramidal displays of French clocks, 
bronzes, statuettes of every conceivable variety ; as also, silver sets, silver 
spoons, and every description of silverware. Counters of Italian marble 
support show-cases containing displays of jewelry. In the front part of the 
store on Fifth street, is the case containing the diamond display, where 
diamond crosses, ear-rings, wedding sets, engagement rings, etc., are found 
in gorgeous array. At either side of the diamond counter, pearl, coral, 
enamel, ruby, garnet, amethyst, emerald, topaz, and gold jewelry is exhibited 
in great variety. Here again we see creations of a higher art, but more lim- 
ited value: — incrusted amethysts, and cameos that represent the classical 
conceptions and cunning workmanship that still flourish in the crumbling 
cities of the Mediterranean. Pearls, those "treasures of an oyster," are here 
combined with diamonds and with cameos, and each of these are found in 
unique settings to gratify the refined taste of modern adornment. 

The cameos and gems are imported, and the setting done in the house by 
competent designers. Unset gems and rare and curious designs are shown 
for those who require something absolutely unique. Onyx in varying colors 
and rare design, cut in relief, incrusted and inlaid, and sphynx-like Egyptian 
heads that carry one back to the stone dreamer over a buried civilization. 

In the department devoted to watches, products of American, Swiss and 
English manufacture are exhibited in such profusion as would make it difficult 
for one to enumerate. On the grand show-room of the first floor is to be 
found every article of adornment and utility that ranges between a lady's 
thimble and a $50,000 set of diamonds. The largest diamond so far imported 
into this country is owned and exhibited by this firm. It weighs thirty-two 
and one-fourth carats, and is entirely free from defects. The upper stairs of 
the house are used for manufacturing purposes and as offices. 

The firm of Eugene Jaccard & Co. has been established about forty-six 
years, and is the oldest in the West. The magnitude of its trade may be 
infeiTed from the vast extent of territory embraced in the business. The 
watch and music-box manufactory is located at Saintc Croix, Switzei'land, and 
is superintended by Mr. Cuendet, Senior. It was established in 1836. The 
firm employs agents in Paris, Birmingham and Vienna, who purchase dia- 
monds, French clocks, French, English and German fancy goods, cutlery. 



XLVIII LOCAI, AND COMMKRCIAI,. 

bronzes and plated ware, and are ever on the outlook for meritorious novelties 
for the St. Louis house. 

Mr. Jaccard, the founder of the business, died a few months after the com- 
pletion of the new edifice that was the result of a long and successful career, 
and the entire management devolved upon his nephew, Mr. Eugene J. 
Cuendet, who had been educated in the business by him, and is at present 
sole proprietor. 

The establishment is one that exercises a most beneficial influence upon 
our material and intellectual growth, and is at once an honor and an orna- 
ment to our city. To the very highest commercial honor, an honor that is 
a sufficient guarantee of the purity of anything that leaves this establish- 
ment, is combined a business enterprise that is equal to the most exacting 
requirements. 



BROOKMIRE & RANKEN. 



No single branch of business more clearly illustrates the advantages ot St. 
Louis as a distributing point for both home and foreign products, and the 
comprehensive grasp of the genius that directs the operations of trade, than 
that which represents the department of groceries. The business is made up 
in great measure, though not entirely, of articles of foreign production. Its 
two great staples are coffee and sugar. St. Louis is now, as she must continue 
to be, the great distributing point of the Mississippi Valley, yet in making the 
market and giving it prominence and breadth, it was not enough that unri- 
valed facilities existed. They had yet to be utilized by men who could execute 
with precision all the varied operations involved, and who had the capital and 
the nerve to carry enormous stocks, and in disposing of them to ask no favors 
other than those based upon the advantages they had to offer. 

In this labor of organizing and developing, the part borne by the house of 
Bi'ookmire & Ranken was an important one, and it has now placed them in 
the front rank in that trade. For years the supremacy of their position has 
been unquestioned. They have put in operation that insensible machinery of 
trade, which, through extensive acquaintance, widely-diftbsed information, 
and the many unwritten obligations of mercantile life, causes St. Louis to be 
regarded with favor throughout the most magnificent extent of country that 
ever acknowledged a single commercial centre. Imbued with the teachings 
of the past and filled with the spirit of the present, with brains, and activity, 
and nerve, and dash, and stability, they have built up a trade that is a wonder, 
and established a house that, though not without rivals, is yet far in advance 
of them all. Theirs is indeed a great house, and the honor due the men who 
have built it up is proportioned to the magnitude of their work. 



lUiOOKMlRK \ RA.VKKX. XI, I\ 

The very extreme of speculation has been as yet unable to determine with 
accuracy why it is that single commercial houses grow up in communities 
with an overwhelming importance. That they do so, is one of the unac- 
counted facts in commercial economv. In many cases the causes that pro- 
duced them can be traced, but in no two are they exactly alike. In all cases 
they require combinations of capital and talent. Almost always they are of 
steady growth, and must possess the power of holding their way through ever- 
shifting circumstances by which they are surrounded. Behind the moving 
power there must always exist a quick apprehension of the interests to be 
subserved and a skillful and tireless activity. 

During the last five years, the house of Brookmire & Ranken ma}' be said 
to have achieved its pre-eminence, rapidly swelling the yearly aggregates of 
their trade until their annual sales reach closely upon three million dollars, 
an aggregate hitherto unattained in the West in the grocery trade. All of the 
partners are young men of unflagging energy, each is ambitious and saga- 
cious. Mr. James H. Brookmire, the senior member of the firm, although 
only thirty-seven years of age, has an experience of twenty-two years in the 
trade, and as may be supposed, has been no careless observer of the commer- 
cial fluctuations that have been crowded into that period. 

The house takes in four numbers, extending from 8io to 8i6 North Second 
street, and has every appliance that ingenuity has yet made available for the 
transaction of business. Steam power runs the la:-ge elevator, sugar crushers 
and other machinery. Although dealing in every article that comes under 
the head of staple and fancy groceries, the house makes a specialty of coffee, 
and is able in this important article to make terms as advantageous to 
Western buyers as can be offered in New York, Baltimore or any Eastern 
city. Two cargoes of coffee, imported at the port of Galveston, Texas, the 
only cargoes that, thus far, have arrived there, were bought by this house. 

Prior to i860. New Orleans was the great coffee market for the West. 
The blockade caused by the war, however, threw that trade into the hands 
of New York and Baltimore, and Eastern cities have since been enabled to 
maintain to a great extent, the advantage they then secured, and, through 
combinations of capital and established relations, to, for a time, divert the 
trade from its natural channel. While this state of affairs is not permanent, 
it serves to show the strength of capital and enterprise. 

Whether the coffee comes through New Orleans by its natural channel, or 
from the East, St. Louis still maintains her position as the distributing point 
for the Mississippi Valley. This is due in part to her natural advantages, 
and in part to the enterprise and sagacity of the men in whose hands the 
trade has reached its present standing. The strongest and most conspicuous 
representative of that trade here is the house of Brookmire & Ranken, buying 
cargoes direct from the importer, availing themselves of low rates of freights, 
which can be secured on large lots, and then distributing from St. Louis wuth 
all the advantage that her commercial position gives. 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL 



As a representative of the general trade of St. Louis, its stability and its 
expansion, the house of Brookmire & Ranken, in the department of groceries, 
is honoring the city and advancing the general prosperity. Earnest and hon- 
orable, active, progressive and ever alert to strengthen the relations between 
our city and the vast region tributary to her, the men who dictate and execute 
the policy of such a house are worthy of the highest credit and honor. 



SHRYOCK & ROWLAND. 



The house of Shryock & Rowland is a marked example of the value of 
commanding personal character and influence in connection with business 
experience and acumen. Combining in itself three distinct, yet parallel lines 
of business, and attaining an aggregate of five millions annually, its prestige 
and its strength seem due in an unusual measure to the rare personal qualities 
of those who established and who now conduct it. No house in the city is 
more thoroughly identified by association and interest with the Southern trade, 
and none could be less free from prejudice or bias of any kind. A trade 
which was at one time distinctly Southern, has, without relaxing its grasp in 
that direction, pushed as industriously into the Northwest and gained there 
and in the West a distinction which few of its rivals enjoy. 

The business in its basis comes distinctly under the head of commission. 
Added to this, however, are the other two lines of groceries and provisions, 
in each of which departments large stocks are carried. 

The present house may be said to have been founded in 1855, by Wm. P. 
and Lee R. Shryock, both Kentuckians, the former of whom had been in the 
di-y goods trade in St. Louis some years before. Up to the breaking out of 
the war, their commercial history was not a ver}^ eventful one. With the 
opening of that great struggle which forms a historical epoch from which it 
is convenient to date. Colonel Lee R. Shryock espoused the Southern cause 
and entered the field. 

In 1S64 the present house was organized by Wm. P. Shryock and D. P. 
Rowland. The business in ante-bellum days had been large throughout the 
South, and the efforts of the partners were directed to regaining that trade. 
The difliculties that beset business operations in those days can now be but 
feebly appreciated. With armies yet in the field, and cut oft' from a large part 
of the South by military lines, they yet pushed on, and as fast as military 
control disappeared, established commercial relations. As the picket lines 
were withdrawn, they were the first there to post and strengthen the lines of 
trade. Owing to these efforts the old business of the house returned, and with 
it an aggregation that made this the leading Southern house. 



siinvocK \ nowi.Axn. i.i 

In 1866, Colonel Lee R. Shryock returned from the South and became a 
partner. L. D. Allen and David R. Francis also became members of the 
firm, and the place of business was located on Commercial street, occupying 
the same location for about sixteen years. It is a noteworthy coincidence 
that each of the three leading members of the firm should have commenced 
his business career in St. Louis in the dry goods trade. William P. Shryock 
came to St. Louis in 1S49, and remained for a time with the house of .Crow, 
McCreery & Co. He, next year, returned to his home in Kentucky, and 
came back here in 1855, where he, with his brother, laid the foundation of 
the present business. Lee R. Shryock was in the commission business under 
the name of Shryock and Anderson when the combination with his brother, 
William P., took place. D. P. Rowland came to St. Louis in November 
1853, entered the dry goods house of A. J. McCreery &. Co., and so con- 
tinued until the breaking out of the war. That event so unsettled regular 
trade that he became a speculator, and conducted various operations of a 
speculative character. 

It is since the war that the house has established its distinctive character 
and attained its extraordinary influence and strength. The South was at 
first its special field, and its efforts in that direction led to the establishing of 
the Vicksburg Packet Company and the Arkansas and White River Packet 
Company, both of which lines were projected by them. They chartered the 
first boat and shipped the first cargo to Shreveport, Louisiana, primarily of 
course, with the object of making a profit on the venture, and secondarily, 
of opening up that section for direct trade with St. Louis. In the latter 
object they were successful even beyond the expectations of that time, as the 
trafiic between that region and our city shows, yet, on the immediate trans- 
action they sustained a loss — not in consequence of faulty calculations, but 
because so many followed immediately in their wake as to injure the avail- 
ability of the market before they could sell. Looking beyond the temporary 
misfortune of this first shipment, and regarding the magnificent trade to 
which it led, it was in its public character a success for which high credit 
is due. 

The house now occupied was purchased by the firm three years ago. 
Extending from Main street to Commercial street, forty feet in width, it 
includes the two numbers, 218 and 220 Main, and on Commercial street the 
numbers 309 and 3ii. From basement to roof it includes seven stories. The 
offices, handsomely and conveniently arranged, are in rear from the Main 
street entrance, and look out upon Commercial street. 

The stability of the house and the confidence it inspires, as well as the 
satisfaction its patrons feel, are indicated by the fact that many of the names 
on their books twenty years ago still have their accounts there, and that the 
temporary inteiTuption of the war in no way weakened their personal and 
business esteem for their old friends. 

In the extent and character of its dealinsfs it stands alone, no other house 



LII I-OCAI- AND COMMERCIAL. 

pursuing the same line, or rather the same variety of lines, and making each 
a strong feature of its transactions. In groceries, it can boast one of the 
largest stocks in the city, and has unsurpassed facilities for filling the orders 
of its correspondents, whatever may be their wants. 

The commission business, which is, as before stated, one of its distinctive 
characteristics, is very largely in cotton, but not confined to that staple. 

Immediately after the war, when commerce was being re-established, 
these men were among the first to urge that the position of St. Louis and the 
new adjustment of the question of transportation could be made available to 
make St. Louis a great cotton market. To this end they labored zealously, 
and with a degree of success apparent in the magnificent results that have 
been so often the cause of wonder and gratification. In the handling of this 
one article, St. Louis has taken an imposing forward stride, and future 
triumphs will prove that her representative merchants have in no wise relaxed 
their eftbrts. 



A. F. SHAPLEIGH & CO. 



It is the glory, as it deserves to be the boast, of St. Louis, that though she 
exhibits a distinctly conceded precedence in some lines of trade and of manu- 
factures, yet in none that pertain to the life of our own people is she without 
able and zealous representatives. In the department of hardware, Messrs. 
A. F. Shapleigh & Co. have for years been regarded as occupying the fore- 
most position. Their sales, of which the major portion might be denominated 
"•shelf hardware," would be accurately stated in round numbers as a million 
dollars annually. When it is remembered that metals, and tinner's stock, and 
other goods frequently found in hardware stocks, though not belonging there 
in a proper classification, form no part of the sales of this house, this aggre- 
gate is a more imposing one than appears at first thought. The business has 
been one of steady growth since its first establishment by its senior proprietor 
in 1S43. Then the distribution was made by our rivers, and in the winter, 
travelers representing the house started out on horseback upon trips occupying 
months, in which they renewed the acquaintance of their customers and made 
their collections. Our existing net-work of railroads has modified greatly old 
modes of business, and in many directions extended its area, but this house 
has held steadily on, and through each successive change has grown stronger 
and greater, with a constantly-widening influence. 

Its main history, though extending over a period of thirty-two years, and 
running through greater commercial and political changes than any other 
third of a centurv can show, mav be liriefly told. Augustus F. Shapleigh, 



A. K. SHAI'LKKMI .V CO. r.lll 

the senior member, came to St. Louis in 1843, ^"*^^ opened a branch of a Phil- 
adelphia house in which he was a partner. The branch here was under his 
supervision and has remained so since that time, though its eastern connection 
was severed. The firm name became Shapleigh, Day & Co., and afterward 
A. F. Shapleigh & Co. The junior members of the firm are now, his son 
Frank Shapleigh, John Cantwell and Alfred Lee. 

The system of business that has grown up in the last few years is one that 
adds largely to the prestige of this house. This is the system of doing busi- 
ness by means of correspondence. By means of it the retail dealer can make 
his order at home with the price lists before him, and while saving the expense 
of coming to the city and making his purchases in person, can be assured of 
the most careful and conscientious filling of the order. The high reputation 
of this house, maintained through a third of a century, is a guarantee that 
they will serve the interests of the customer as well as their own. 

The House. — This is, in fact, two houses thrown together by connecting 
arches in the walls, taking the two numbers 414 and 416 North Main street and 
running through to Commercial street. On Main street the structure stands 
five stories high, and on Commercial street, six. A cellar below the whole is 
used for storage of heavy goods, making seven floors from top to bottom. 
Treating each of the houses as a distinct building, there would be fourteen 
floors, each fully utilized in the storage of distinct classes of stock. 

Entering from the street on Main street, the offices are in the rear. On each 
side on the walls are the shelf goods, cutlery for pocket and table use, scis- 
sors, locks, files, and fine steel goods. Many of these goods are of English 
and German manufacture, yet it is noticeable that American cutlery and files 
and fine shelf goods are coming into prominence and winning popularity. 
This is in part due to their making better qualities of goods, and in part to 
the prejudice in favor of foreign goods disappearing. Some, indeed, have 
preferences for American files and similar goods of American make. 

The floor below, entered from the level of Commercial street, is used as 
storage for heavy goods, chains, anvils, mining-tools, wedges, axes, and sim- 
ilar heavy articles. Axes form an important item in this stock, taking up the 
centre of one whole floor. In this one article the house has a very important 
and extensive trade, and introduces an axe made expressly for them, and 
stamped with their own name. It is the highest-priced axe they sell, yet as it 
is one to which their own reputation is attached, it is as nearly as possible the 
perfection of manufacture in material and skill, and the consideration of cost 
is secondary to the production of a perfect article. Hickory handles for mining 
and agricultural tools are also stored here, and recently have become an article 
of extensive manufactm'e in St. Louis, and a branch in which she excels, both 
in the forms produced and the quality of wood used. 

Ascending to the second floor from Main street, we are ushered into the 
sample room. This was formerly of less than one-third its present space, 
but it was found necessary to devote a whole floor to the exhibition of the 



LIV , • LOCAL AND COMMEHCIAL. 

numberless articles contained in the stock. Attached to cards on the wall, or 
conveniently placed through the centre of the floor and in show-cases, are the 
single articles which the stock duplicates in such enormous quantities. New 
articles, the product of ingenuity and improved machinery and skill, are being 
constantly introduced. Noticeably one of these is green wire cloth, an article 
which has more than trebled its sale each year in the past three years, and 
which now reaches about one hundred thousand yards in this house alone. 
Yet it may seem unjust to specify when there is so much to attract attention. 
Mining tools for gold, silver and lead mining ai'e shown in great variety, and 
the varying forms and styles of shovel for this one industry form. a catalogue 
in themselves. 

One side of an upper floor is devoted to locks, and another large space to 
screens, all arranged with a precision that would be imperfectly conveyed in 
any description in words. 

At the top of the house are stored the light agricultural implements tliat 
belong strictly to the hardware trade, such as forks for all purposes, scythes 
and swathes, and smilar goods in their appropriate seasons. 

A rapidly-moving elevator is kept almost constantly in motion, and by the 
ease it gives to moving goods and looking through the various floors, makes 
them nearly as convenient as though all thrown together on the same level. 
Indeed, with the amount of handling performed in receiving and shipping, it 
is only by economy of time and movement that it is made possible. Sales 
now extend through Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennes- 
see, Kentucky, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, Utah, 
Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona, strengthening the social and trade 
relations of St. Louis with one of the widest sweeps of territory ever acknowl- 
edging a single metropolis. 

In its distinctive branch of trade, the house is a great representative of the 
Mississippi Valley, and of St. Louis, adding to our city's fame by unsurpassed 
enterprise and commercial honor. 



ST. LOUIS TYPE FOUNDRY. 



One of the oldest and most important inanufacturing establishments in our 
city, and one in every way worthy of commendation, is the St. Louis Type 
Foundry. It was first established in 1840, and has grown from a small 
concern, occupying limited quarters in the alley between Main and Second, 
and Market and Chestnut streets, to its present mammoth proportions — 
requiring two buildings, on the north side of Pine street, with ten floors, 
eighteen by one hundred and eight feet each. To the rear of these two 



ST. LOUIS TYPK FOUNDRV. 



building's there is also occupied two floors of a warehouse, running from 
Second street 1o the alley, each floor being eighteen by one hundred and 
thirty feet — making in all over 34,000 square feet. 

In this establishment is manufactured everything required in a printing 
office, except cylinder and jobbing presses ; of these articles, however, they 
keep quite a number in stock, suited to the trade of the West, and have 
them on exhibition, and ready for shipment on the shortest notice. 

Ascending, by means of a powerful steam elevator, to the fifth floor, there 
is seen about a dozen type machines, running by steam, with operatives 
apparently grinding out type, while a crowd of boys, technically known as 
"breaks," remove the jets left on the type by the machines. From this 
department the type passes to the finishing-room below, where a large num- 
ber of girls are engaged in rubbing, kerning, setting, etc., and through whose 
hands the type passes to the finishers, who smoothe it body-ways and groove 
the characters at the bottom. After all this manipulation, the type, in sticks 
about a yai'd long, is placed on stands, and critically examined with a 
magnifying glass, all imperfect letters being discarded ; then, after being put 
up in pages, wrapped in pajDer and properly marked, the type passes to the 
sales-room shelves. 

In another room, about half a dozen men are employed in making brass 
rules of various designs, labor-saving rules, metal furniture, slugs, leads, etc., 
while machinists are preparing old and building new type machines for use 
in the adjoining apartment. 

On the fourth floor is located the electrotype department, in full blast, 
engaged on cuts, book and blank work, etc. The details of the process of 
electrotyping are very interesting to the observer. 

Adjoining this department is the wood woi-kshop, where a number of 
skillful artisans are engaged in making type-cases, all stvles, cabinets, stands, 
galleys and furniture peculiar to printing offices. 

The third floor is wholly occupied by the machine shop. Here is manu- 
factured the famous Washington hand-press, of vari^ous sizes, while rebuild- 
ing and repairing all kinds of machinery is also a specialty. In connection 
with the rear of the machine shop are iron bridges leading to the warehouse. 
This is a large room, containing ten cylinder printing presses of different 
sizes and makes, new and second-hand, also the various styles and sizes of 
job presses in use — Universal, Gordon, Liberty, Nonpareil, Peerless, etc. ; 
also quite a lot of second-hand jobbing presses of every imaginable size and 
make. In the upper story of the warehouse is what they call the morgue 
(a very appropriate name), it being the place where second-hand type is 
stored— the remains of many defunct printing offices ; here also is stored a 
hundred or more cases of fine papers, being the reserve stock for that branch 
of their business. 

Descending to the second floor, it is found literally packed with fine papers, 
envelopes and card stock, with clerks busily cmplovcd in packing and ship- 



LVI LOCAL AND COiM.MKKCl AL. 

ping goods to :.ll parts of the country, from Indiana to California, and from 
Minnesota to Texas. 

On the first floor is tlie main, or type sales-room. On the left as you enter 
is seen a row of shelving one hundred feet in length, reaching from floor to 
ceiling, filled with type sufliciently varied to meet the wants of any printer, 
no matter how fastidious his taste may be. 

Adjoining this department is the store-room for printing papers, containing 
piles on piles of the various sizes and qualities of book and news required by 
the trade. 

To the rear of these two will be found the engine-room and blacksmith shop, 
where they have a 50-horse power steam engine, which drives the machinery 
of the establishment. Here also are the blacksmiths who forge the chases and 
such other iron work as is constantly needed in an establishment of this char- 
acter. Ascending a pair of stairs is found a room above the engine-room and 
blacksmith shop, fitted up for manufacturing printer's roller composition, 
printer's rollers, etc., with all the necessary appliances of steam, etc., which 
should enable them to supply all the rollers to the printers of the entire West. 

Descending from the roller composition room, we pass through the store- 
room for printing papers, and then descend to the basement, where a large 
room is lighted by gas and fitted up for second-hand machinery. Here again 
are seen presses of old and modern styles, in varied stages of perfection, 
suited to the wants of printers of limited means, and occasionally equally as 
acceptable to more opulent members of the craft. In this basement is also 
found the stock of printer's ink in kegs, which range from the ordinary 
twenty-pound keg to the barrel of two hundred and fifty pounds, and embraces 
all qualities from the ordinary power press news ink to the finest job, as well 
as colored inks for posters and other colored work. 

The general office will be found on the first floor of No. 117, in charge of 
Mr. William Bright, who is secretary and general business manager. This 
gentleman has been connected with the establishment as boy and man for 
thirty years, and few indeed are the Western printers and publishers who do 
not know him personally, and favorably. His experience is unlimited. 
During the past twelve or fourteen years he has had charge of the concern, 
and its products have been so perfected that they now stand equal to the best 
in this or any other country. 

The financial and book-keeping parts of the establishment are presided over 
by Mr. Charles S. Kaufiman, who has been identified with the house since its 
incorporation in 1861. 

The skilled workmen, clerks, salesmen, etc., employed by the company 
number over ninety. In the sales department are practical printers of large 
experience who carefully attend to the execution of orders, and at times render 
valuable assistance to purchasers. Such an establishment fills a great want 
in the growing needs of the West, and its success is to be regarded as the 
measure of its deserts. As a commercial success, it is one of the most worthy 
and prominent of which St. Louis can boasl. 



TIIK MAHRISON WIKK COMPANY. I,\'IT 



THE HARRISON WIRE COMPANY 



The Harrison Wire Company is a comparatively recent addition to the 
manufacturing- and industrial life of St. Louis. Commencing its operations 
in 1S73, skillfully organized by men of abundant means, business ability 
and thorough knowledge of the facilities and wants by which they were sur- 
rounded, it sprung at once into full equipment and complete activity, and 
assumed a foremost rank among our industrial establishments. It was organ- 
ized with a fully paid up capital of one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
dollars, yet its paid up capital is no measure of the resources which are at 
hand to sustain it. 

The works occupy, with the exception of a narrow strip on the west, the 
block bounded by Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets and by Gratiot 
and Papin, on the line of the Pacific Railroad. 

The process of wire drawing is by no means an intricate one, the rudest 
blacksmith shop being not unfrequently provided with a die in which small 
pieces are drawn for special purposes. When, however, we come to supplving- 
the wants of large sections, and the consequent introduction of the machinery 
required in large establishments, this simple process comes to have attached 
to it a multiplicity of apparatus and machinery, each contributing to the 
uniformity of the product and economy in producing it. 

The power for this establishment is furnished by three engines, one of one 
hundred and fifty, and another of fifteen horse-power in the rolling-mill, and 
one of eighty horse-power in the wire-mill. The iron used is taken in in two 
of its crudest forms, blooms and scraps, on one side, and emerges on the 
other coils of wire, packed and papered, ready for distribution to the con- 
sumer through the channels of commerce. The iron rolled from the scrap is 
used only for the coarser grades. That rolled from the Missouri blooms may 
become, after frequent drawings and annealings, as delicately slight as the 
thread in a lady's needle. The rolls through which the iron first passes do 
not in the main differ from those in any rolling-mill, except that as the bloom 
becomes a bar and the bar becomes a rod it passes through with greater 
rapidity. At the last, and before it becomes number four wire, it is seen 
rushing back and forth, a delicate red line controlled by dexterous workmen. 
As the number four rod passes finally through the rolls, one end is caught up, 
attached to a reel, and the rod coiled and made ready for an important 
operation, and one that in the method employed illustrates the fact that 
with each new industry there is found a new source of wealth in the soil of 
Missouri. Before the wire drawing commences, the coiled rod must be coated^ 
as it is technically termed. This last operation consists in dipping it in some 
solution that shall modifv the enormous friction attending its being drawn 



iVIII ],OCAL AND C0MMF:RCIAI.. 

through the die. Formerly flour and water were used, and as numbers of 
barrels of flour were used dail\' it was a considerable item in the expense. 
Now it has been discovered that a fine quality of clay found not far from this 
city is preferable. This clay is white and friable, w^ith a soapy feeling when 
rubbed in the fingers, does not of course burn oft", and its tenacity is shown 
by the fact that it adheres to the wire even after it has been drawn through 
the die. 

The number four rod is drawn twice, and becomes number eight wire. It 
is then again coated and is annealed, and from that on is annealed with each 
two drawings. The process of annealing is conducted upon two different 
plans. One of these consists of a muffler^ or enormous oven with a gate in 
front opening vertically. Here the operation is concluded in forty minutes. 
The other plan is a hermetically sealed oven, in which the wire is heated and 
again cooled, and the process occupies twenty-four hours. 

The actual drawing of the wire has nothing particularly striking in con- 
nection with it except the application of machinery to the purpose, and that 
is extremely ingenious and entirely under the control of the operators, each 
attaching and detaching his own particular parts at will. The dies are made 
of chilled iron, except for the very fine wire, when they are of tool steel. 
As the smaller sizes become imperfect thev are enlarged to the next size, and 
so continue in use. 

Number eight wire, after lieing annealed, is drawn to number eleven, then 
annealed and drawn to number fifteen, and so on to every size desired imtil it 
may reach thirty-six, or even forty or higher. To some of the finer grades is 
imparted a copper color by dipping slightly in blue \itriol, (sulphate of 
copper,) and some is tinned by passing it through molten tin. The latter 
process is an ingenious one. The wire is spun from one reel to another, 
passing through successive baths of muriatic acid, melted tin, and water; the 
first cleanses it for its coating, the next coats it, and the water cools it to 
prevent its sticking together when re-wound. 

The finer wire, after it goes above number nineteen, is drawn cold, that is, 
without further annealing, and instead of being coated it is reeled ofl" through 
a solution of grease and water. 

The finished coils are wrapped in paper, strongly tied, and are ready for 
market. From that point it goes into so many avenues that it cannot be 
traced through them all. The coarser kinds are used largely for fencing and 
grape-vine trellisses, and for telegraphs ; brooms, bird-cages, and woven 
goods take a good portion. Mattresses and soda-bottles claim a good share, 
and not long since this establishment was making two tons per week to make 
rings for hogs' noses. In connection with fencing-wire, a considerable 
amount is cut into staples, and a little machine that cuts wire into this useful 
form makes three hundred and fifty per minute, and cuts up two tons of wire 
per day. The steadiness of the demand and the profit that there is in the 
manufacture having been fidlv established, the management liave been increas- 




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WKSTKKN nTUnVEKV- — W. J. I.KMP. I. IX 

ing the capacity of the works from time to time, without interfering with the 
daily operation. Rail tracks, for hauling the raw material and the product, 
have been laid, and the necessity for handling almost entirely done away 
with. Blooms and coal are transferred from the main track without any 
handling whatever. 

In place of columns supporting the roof, trusses have been supplied, and 
the open space still further utilized by the introduction of a new train, so that 
the operation of reducing the iron is continuous. There are now two pud- 
dling furnaces, three heating furnaces and one re-heating furnace. A two- 
and-a-half ton steam hammer is also among the recent additions. 

It is evident that for fine wire the very finest quality of iron must be used, 
and it is desirable, as in this case, that all the operations of its manufacture, 
including the mixing, should be under the control of those who make the 
wire, and whose reputation as manufacturers is bound up with the product. 

Here are facts which, while informing us of the present, are calculated to 
enlarge our views of the future. Here is a simple industry, the figures in 
relation to which are marvelous. Here is an establishment that has been in 
operation less than two years, supplying an enormous demand that already 
existed, and demonstrating facts of the very highest import to the people of 
Missouri and of the whole covmtrv. 



WESTERN BREWERY.— WILLIAM J. LEMP. 



The brewery business of St. Louis is an industry of commanding import- 
ance. Directly it gives employment to millions of capital and hundreds of 
workmen, and in its operations draws large sums from the adjacent country, 
which are again distributed for labor, and for barley and hops. The brewers 
wield immense capital and a wide influence, an influence second to no other 
manufacturing interest. 

At the head of this great trade, occupying a foremost position by reason of 
enterprise in management and perfection of equipment, is the brewery of 
William J. Lemp. The location, at the corner of Second Carondelet avenue 
and Cherokee street, overlooking the Arsenal and Arsenal grounds, is most 
admirable for the purpose. Nothing that either nature ok art could supply, 
is lacking. The buildings of the brewery proper, the malt-house, and the 
offices, cover a rectangle two hundred and eighty-one by one hundred and 
forty-two feet. The cellars, three in depth, extend fifty feet below the curb- 
stone, and are supplemented by a vast natural cave, more perfectly adapted 
for the purpose than if it had been constructed by art. This cave is a great 
natural curiositv, vet it receives an added interest from its great utility in the 



LX LOCAL AND COMMKRClAI,. 

economy of the works with which it is connected. The brewery, the malt- 
house and the offices are connected with each other by paved carriage-ways, 
the two former being each thi-ee stories in height above ground, and three 
stories below, the massive arches of stone and brick masonry resting upon the 
solid rock fifty feet below the surface. The brewery proper is a marvel of 
convenience and fine machinery. A handsome engine of seventy-five horse 
power, running with steady, sweeping stroke that shows oft' its polished parts, 
furnishes the power for the whole establishment, a covered shaft carrying 
power to the malt-house. A battery of four boilers furnishes steam for the 
engine, for the heating of the offices, and for the other purposes in which 
steam is so freely used in the operations of malting and brewing. Above the 
boilers towers the chimney, one hundred feet higher than the stone masonry 
that forms its base. Two elevators, with their machinery, convey the kegs 
and casks to and from the various floors for cleaning, filling, receiving and 
shipping. Pumps for pumping water and beer, and convenient for attachment 
in case of fire, are located near the engine. In the' brewery are two kettles, 
one heated by fire, and having a capacity of one hundred barrels of beer net 
per day, and the other a capacity of one hundred and fifty barrels net per day, 
and heated by steam. Upon the upper floors also are immense coolers for 
cooling the beer, storage for hops, machinery for grinding the malt, and on 
the east side, commanding a fine view, are dormitories for the men employed. 
Looking out from these windows on the east, the cooperage department is to 
be seen, covering a triangular block of ground ; and down by the river, on the 
line of the Iron Mountain railroad, are to be seen two ice-houses, which hold 
the season's supply. 

The malt-house contains the kilns, storage for barley, steeps, sprouting 
floors, and conveyors for moving the grain, when in its various stages of 
advancement. This work is all performed by machinery, and speed and pre- 
cision are secured in each operation. Below this building are extensive cel- 
lars, the arches of massive masonry being composed of the stone quarried in 
making the excavation. 

Yet with all this combination of architectural finish and mechanical adapta- 
tion, the most wonderful and surprising feature of the establishment is its 
subterranean storage. Descending from the brewery with lamp in hand, we 
see by the glimmering light long rows of those immense casks in which the 
beer is kept while maturing. With the foreman, who evidently knows each 
foot of that changing labyrinth, we traverse passage after passage with casks 
on each side and flagging under foot. Again and again we descend to lower 
depths, and then, at last, through a vaulted way hewn in the solid rock, we 
see that we are in the cave. Here is a natural cavern with a comparatively 
smooth horizontal roof overhead, scarred and discolored in places, yet show- 
ing no marks of the mason's chisel except where the stalactites have been 
hewn ofl'. This roof maintains a uniform height of about twelve feet. 
ITnderfoot is a firm floor of rock and s/za/e, and we stand about fifty feet below 



(;i!.\v. I!Aki:m a- co. i.n' 

the surface of the ground. This natural cave, so admirably adapted for its 
purpose, is about seven hundred feet in length, and is piled on either side v\^ith 
casks. The whole number of these immense casks ranges somewhere between 
eight hundred and one thousand. Near the entrance is a natural curiosity, the 
exact impression of a large turtle in the roof overhead. The monster was 
caught and imbedded in a plasiic mold when nature was making the cavern 
in which the foaming beverage of the people was to mellow and ripen. 

The whole cost of the buildings and machinerv is about $300,000, and the 
capacity about 80,000 barrels of beer annually, giving constant employment 
to sixty men, and ten wagons with drivers and horses in the delivery. 

The details of the manufacture and of the business are under IMr. Lemp's 
immediate supervision. He learned the business with his father, who was 
the first man to brew lager beer in St. Louis. As foreman in his father's 
brewery, he became well grounded in the best principles of management, and 
his experience since has been a varied and successful one. The high reputa- 
tion of his beer, in every market in which it is consumed, is the result of the 
greatest care in each of the operations, and his facilities for properly storing 
and caring for it while perfecting itself with age. Experience, and care, and 
liberal management combine to sustain and extend the splendid reputation 
which William J. Lemp has earned as a brewer, and as a business man of far- 
sighted and sure-footed judgment. The business, in its magnitude as well as 
in its character, is an honor to St. Louis. 



GRAY, BAKER & CO. 



The business conducted by the house of Gray, Baker & Co. branches into 
three distinct lines of trade, which are yet kindred to each other, and are here 
so combined that each works with advantage to the other, and all together 
operate harmoniously. The firm are publishers, wholesale book-sellers and 
stationers, and conduct extensive operations in each department of their 
business. In books and stationery they possess unusual facilities for conduct- 
ing a general jobbing business, and have their system so arranged as to enable 
wholesale buyers to supply all their wants from their stock. Purchasing, as 
they do, in large quantities, and for cash, they are enabled to offer cash 
buyers manufacturers' prices, with the regular discounts. 

In school-books, medical, technical and scientific works, they have peculiar 
advantages for supplying the demand, and their extended relations with 
schools, colleges and medical institutions, and their acquaintance with the 
various professors and teachers in the West, enables them to make up their 
orders early for new works, and to receive them here and offer them siniul- 



I.OCAI. AND COMMERCTAI,. 



taiieousl}- with their appearance in the East, and to supply their customers 
at publishers' prices. 

The magnitude of the city and country demand for paper makes St. Louis 
one of the great paper marts of the Union. This tends in a great measure 
to dra\v the book trade here, and to give the market a tone and an evenness 
that vs^arrants the carrying of immense stock. While it is true that large 
stocks attract large buyers, it is also true that a market must be well grounded 
in a constant and steady demand before dealers dare to make large advance 
orders. These reciprocal relations have, however, been established in St. 
Louis, but they are the outgrowth of rare judgment and enterprise combined 
with that other very important element — years of experience. 

The business was established in 1858, by Mr. E. P. Gray. In r859 ^^^^ 
firm became Gray & Crawford. In 1873 the present firm was organized, the 
parties being E. P. Gray, W. D. Baker and Henry Griffin. The stock con- 
stantly carried is about $150,000, and annual sales foot up the round sum of 
$500,000. The house, as it is one of the oldest, is also one of the most 
extensive and best appointed in the city. Its trade extends to every part of 
the Mississippi Valley, but more especially to the Southwest, West and 
vSouth. The building now occupied is spacious, and well adapted to its 
purpose. It is situated at 407 North Fourth Street, four stories in height, 
and furnished with a basement that is used for the storage of school-books. 
On the first floor are found the oflices and the elegant and superbly-stocked 
retail department. The second floor is allotted to stationery, and the fourth 
floor is used for sH:orage purposes. 

The energy and sound judgment which the members of this hovise have 
displayed, and the reputation which they have established for care and reli- 
ability, are fully explanatory of the large measure of success that has attended 
their operations, and given them such an enviable reputation in a branch of 
trade the ramifications of which are so difiicult to follow, and the influence of 
which is by no means confined to its commercial operations. 



NEWXOMB BROTHERS. 



The house of Newcomb Brothers is the representative of a trade of the 
highest importance in the decoration and comfort of the homes of the people. 
The lines of goods passing through their hands embrace so many varieties 
that it would be difficult to enumerate them all, though it is comparatively 
easy to classify them. Their leading article is paper hangings, and then 
come in lists of kindred goods that include lace curtains and curtain goods, 
window shades, wire screens, weather strips and upholstery goods, besides 





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COLE BROTHERS. EXIX 



LIGHTNING RODS— COLE BROTHERS. 



It was many years after the discovery by Franklin of the conductibility of 
lightning, that the principle was utilized for the preservation of buildings 
among the people. The most enlightened governments of the world put 
lightning rods upon their public buildings, but the principle needed better 
means of application than any yet adopted, before lightning rods could 
come into general use. The application of the electric telegraph became so 
general during the decade extending from 1S40 to 1850, that the poj^ular 
mind grew^ to be well-informed regarding the uses and dangers of that subtle 
force, and lightning rods came into general use. By the invention of James 
Spratt, of Cincinnati, in 1848, a jointed continuous rod was achieved, and 
from that time the trade in lightning rods became a distinct industry, in 
which a large amount of capital was invested and many men employed. An 
invention so important in the protection of life and property could not fail of 
almost immediate adoption by the people, and it is now estimated that there 
is in the United States many millions of dollars of capital employed in this 
single manufacture. 

In 1849, the discovery of the Philadelphia philosopher, as utilized by the 
Englishman Spratt, was introduced into Iowa by Messrs. J. W. and R. S. 
Cole, the senior members of the firm of Cole Brothers. W. R. Cole, the next 
younger brother, acted in the capacity of salesman at that time. The begin- 
ning was a moderate one, a single horse being employed in transporting the 
outfit, and the rods being put up by the single salesman. Iowa was then, as 
was the whole Northwest, a wild and sparsely settled country, but the 
sagacity of the brothers Cole led them to see that all that rich territory must 
soon be brought into cultivation, and that the fine houses and well filled barns 
would require lightning rods for their protection. For a number of years the 
lightning rod firm was known as J. W. & R. S. Cole, the younger members 
of the present firm sometimes doing business in connection with them and 
sometimes on separate account. As the yeai^s passed on, the business grew 
and prospered, and facilities for its transaction were added. 

In 1859 Messrs. J. W. and R. S. Cole admitted as partners in the business 
W. R. Cole and James A. Throop, and the firm name becam'e Cole, 
Throop & Co. Four years later the house admitted A. Brockway as a 
partner, and established their pump manufactory at Greencastle, Indiana. 
In i860 Mr. John J. Cole established himself at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where, 
during the next four years, he built up a flourishing and lucrative business. 
February i, 1865, Mr. James A. Throop withdrew from the firm of Cole, 
Throop & Co. and Mr. John J. Cole was invited to take his place and unite 
his fortunes with his three older lirothers, which he did, the firm name being 



i 

u 



LXX LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

changed to Cole Brothers. The Itusiness of. the firm was yet comparatively 
small, with a small lightning rod manufactory located at Mount Pleasant, 
Iowa, but with harmonious councils and united action the Company was just 
entering upon the period of its greatest prosperity. They soon discovered 
the disadvantage of manufacturing at a distance from a commercial centre, 
and determined to remove their lightning rod manufactory to Chicago or 
St. Louis for greater facilities. The advantages and disadvantages of the 
two places were discussed, and St. Louis was decided upon as the rising 
central city of the continent, and offering greater inducements. Accordingly, 
in January iS66, the Franklin Lightning Rod Works were established in 
St. Louis, under the management of John J. Cole, the present superintendent 
of the St. Louis department. At that time the manufactory was a small 
affair, producing a few hundred thousand feet of rod each year to supply their 
own teams ; but since then the capacity of their manufactory has been many 
times doubled and quadrupled, until now they produce lightning rods by the 
millions of feet, and nearly every boat that ascends or descends the river, 
and nearly every railroad train that pushes into the interior, bears its burden 
of the products of this factory. Thus, from the small beginning here traced, 
we see arise the largest lightning rod and pump firm in the Mississippi 
Valley, and next to the largest in existence. The following are the prin- 
cipal and branch houses of the firm : 

Principal Houses. — Cole Brothers, Mount Pleasant, Iowa ; headquarters 
of the retail department. Cole Brothers, St. Louis, Missouri ; Lightning 
Rod Manufactory. Cole Brothers & Brockway, Greencastle, Indiana ; Pvmip 
Manufactory. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Sherman, Texas ; Branch Light- 
ning Rod Manufactory. 

Branch Houses. — Cole Brothers & Hart, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Cole 
Brothers & Adams, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Hutton, Atlantic, 
Iowa. Cole Brothers & Jennings, Osceola, Iowa. Cole Brothers cS: Harris, 
Fort Dodge, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Machos, Boonsboro, Iowa. Cole 
Brothers & Swan, Centerville, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Kansas 
City, Missouri. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Sherman, Texas. Cole Brothers 
& Eaton, Springfield, Missouri. Cole Brothers & Eaton, Little Rock, 
Arkansas. Cole Brothers & Fagan, Pana, Illinois. Cole Brothers, success- 
ors to Cole Brothers & Ashers, Lawrence, Kansas. Samuel Hutton, with 
Cole Brothers, St. Joseph, Missouri. 

This description must derive its interest largely from the fact that this house 
is a representative one of St. Louis, and the largest west of the Alleghanies. 
The success that has followed the endeavors of its founders must be attributed 
to their energy, their business ability and the strict integrity that has marked 
all their transactions. From the outset they adopted the best lightning rod in 
the market, and started out on the principle of integrity and equal justice. 
They have always made it a point that their Franklin Lightning Rod should 
be the very best article of its kind in the market, and as a result thev have 



NEWCOMH HKC^rirEKS.' i.xin 

many articles that are a necessity to the trade, in wliich they are ever striving; 
to present something still more desirable. The years of experience and 
careful attention which these gentlemen have given to the specialty in which 
they are engaged, produce their legitimate fruit in giving them a prominence 
as careful and tasteful caterers in one of the most exacting branches of trade, 
as well as one in which fashion is constantly asserting itself. 

The house is situated at 217 North Fifth street, and three of the spacious 
floors are devoted to the business, which in its yearly aggregate reaches to 
nearly half a million dollars. Though the business includes both a large 
jobbing trade and an extensive city trade, the latter is the subject of more 
solicitude and care than the other, partly because that trade is more exacting 
as well as more appreciative of fine goods and of novelties, and because it is 
in other respects more satisfactory. Some of the finest residences of which 
our city can boast owe the grace and finish of their interiors to the commer- 
cial and artistic spirit of the Newcomb Brothers. In this line they compete 
boldly with the fresco painter, .and produce effects with p'aper that frequently 
surpass the expectations of their patrons. 

The manufacturing department, which is a part of this establishment, is 
very important in its bearing upon the business, as it enables them to meet 
the wants of their patrons with a precision and economy not otherwise attain- 
able. It has also led to the introduction of several new and desirable articles 
specially adapted to this section. In the article of wire screens, now coming 
into such general use for keeping out flies and insects while securing ventila- 
tion, they have introduced improvements that have placed their own manu- 
factures far in advance of the patented devices of the East, which they also 
sell. In curtain and upholstery goods, the effect of their manufacturing is 
shown in the elegance imjDarted to the work, and the readiness with which 
they meet the varying taste of discriminating patrons. 

The basement, which is used for a storeroom for heavy stock, is a wilder- 
ness of rolls of paper, of all qualities and styles, piled in every direction. The 
main floor, or salesroom, is most conveniently arranged for showing goods 
precisely as they will appear when put in the places they are to occupy. 
Panels swung on hinges like doors, show the effects of the various papers. 
There are to be seen various imitations of native and foreign woods, and the 
countless figures which are produced to gratifiy the taste of the people in 
the decoration of their homes. Curtains, mouldings, mosquito bars, wire 
screens and weather strips are a few of the leading articles that in their 
appropriate seasons are exhibited in profusion, and that are shown in all the 
variety that home and foreign art produce. 

St. Louis is fortunate in being so ably represented in a trade having such 
an important bearing upon her social and commercial life, a trade that is 
rapidly extending, yet is being followed in all its ramifications with a vigor 
and judgment worthy of itself and of our city. 



LXIV LOCAI, ANt) OOATMERCIAI,. 

Norton Newcomb, who may be looked upon as the senior member of the 
firm, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November 29, 1835, where he 
received a sound public school education, eminently calculated to fit him for 
the business which claimed his attention in after-life. When he grew up to 
manhood, he entered upon the inanufacture and sale of paper-hangings, a 
business which he has made a great success ever since. In 1864 he came to 
St. Louis, and by strict attention to a business of which he is complete master, 
has succeeded in making it one of the recognized branches of industry of the 
city. 

George Amos Newcomb, the younger member of the firm, and brother of 
Norton, was born February 14, 1S41. His early education was received at the 
Boston public schools, and in 1863 he graduated at the Wesleyan University, 
at Middletown, Connecticut, where he received a regular university education. 
In 1S64 he entered the navy, and was appointed to a position upon the staff' 
of Admiral Lee, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron. For some 
years he was also engaged in teaching school, but was obliged to give up this 
pursuit on account of an aflection of the lungs. 

The father of these enterprising gentlemen was a prominent citizen of 
Boston, having conducted the boot and shoe business for fifty years in one 
place, on Hanover street, in that city. He was a member of the city council 
for many years, and died in 1874, leaving a handsome fortune to his family. 



THE ST. LOUIS LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 



In the department of life insurance, St. Louis has one great representative 
worthy of herself bearing her own name. In the stability of its character 
and in the magnitude of its transactions, in the precision and simplicity with 
which its operations are conducted, and the lustre it adds to the business 
reputation of our city, the St. Louis Life Insurance Company enjoys a distinc- 
tion that has been earned by the exercise of unremitting care and sound 
business judgment through a series of years. The business of life insurance 
itself has grown to its prominence and its power during the last fourth of a 
century, and it is not strange that, with the almost unqualified success of its 
first years, errors should have crept in that were only eliminated by stunning 
reverses to those companies that forsook the path of safety and followed 
injurious theories. The trials of the last decade have weeded out most 
of the companies whose theories of business were not sound, and we have 
now, as a result of the sifting process, companies that are based upon prin- 
ciples thoroughly tested. 



THE ST, LOUIS LIKE INSURANXK COMPANY. LXV 

The Mound City Life Insurance Company was organized May 14, 1S68, 
and issued its first policy June 10, 1S68. Its offices were located at 318 
North Third street, between Olive and Locust streets, its president being 
Captain James B. Eads. From its organization, the Company received that 
vitality which has made it one of the largest institutions of the country, and 
its record from its inception is the chronicle of continuous success. That 
Western life insurance had many obstacles to surmount is absolutely evidenced 
by the number of companies that have been compelled to succumb by re-insur- 
ance. The attainment of solid and permanent success requires the labor of 
years, uniting industry and the best and most careful management. In 1872 
the growth of the Mound City, and the desire to extend its operations induced 
its stockholders to increase its capital from $150,000 to $500,000, and the 
wisdom of their action is shown in the large augmentation of business which 
followed the increase, and the growth of which it was the basis. In January 
1874 the capital stock was still further increased to $1,000,000, and in the 
following month the name was changed from Mound City to St. Louis. 
" Mound City," as the old sobriquet of St. Louis, had lost its significance, 
and tended to a misplacement of the company's location, and the manage- 
mend deemed it better to place the name of the Company in direct identifi- 
cation with the name of the cit}'. Recognizing cheapness and simplicity as 
desiderata for its success, the management of the Company adopted for its 
plan of business the low rate and plain contracts which are the distinguishing 
marks of stock life insurance companies, avoiding the numberless compli- 
cations of ^the dividend system by deducting the dividends in advance from 
the premiums. This is really the plan to which all others must in time give 
way. It fixes the value of the indemnity furnished, and throws aside the 
cumbersome system of dividends that are always uncertain, and that are 
attended with expense and delay in adjusting. The plan is to sell the 
insurance at its cash value, reducing the whole of the old complicated and 
abstruse calculations that the public never fully understood, to one simjole 
and plain commercial transaction. 

The building of the Company, on the corner of Locust and Sixth streets, 
is one of the finest and best appointed in the city, and the oflices are models 
of elegance and convenience. The structure is one of those which mark the 
taste and liberality of the new spirit that is showing itself in fine architec- 
tural display. Less ornate in its exterior than many cheaper edifices, it is 
probably, in material and construction, superior to anything which our city 
contains. 

The St. Louis Life Insurance Company has assets of over $7,000,000, and 
policies in force numbering over 18,000, covering thousands of lives in many 
States, and some in almost every State in the Union. In stability, character, 
and clear, energetic management, it is unsurpassed by any similar institution 
in America. 



I, XVI LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



THE ST. LOUIS AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL 
ASSOCIATION. 



This Association, incorporated by special Act of the State of Missouri, held 
its first Annual Fair in October 1856. Fifty acres of land, lying on the west 
side of Grand avenue, northwestwardly from the centre of the city, a portion 
of the tract within, but the larger part without the then city limits, were 
deemed sufficient for the future wants of the Association. It has since been 
almost doubled in extent, and now barely accommodates its increased demands. 

These grounds were originally embellished with fine trees of natural growth, 
and now, handsomely inclosed and ornamented with shrubbery, flowers, capa- 
cious drives, gravelled walks and a tiny lake, are highly attractive and beau- 
tiful. Added to these are buildings, costing nearly a quarter of a million of 
dollars, and admirably adapted to the wants of a grand exhibition of the 
agricultural and mechanical products of the mountains, plains and valleys of 
the great and growing West. 

The new amphitheater is magnificent in its proportions, and pleasing and 
ornamental in its architectural design. It will seat twentN'-five thousand per- 
sons, and its ample promenades will accommodate nearly, if not quite, as 
many more. The arena, for equine, bovine, ovine and porcine exhibitions, 
occupies a circle within the vast amphitheater, with a circuit of a quarter of a 
mile. Thursday is the gi'eat exhibition day of the "Fair week,' when the 
schools are closed and business in the city of all kinds suspended, and on that 
day especially, the amphitheater is filled to its utmost capacity, and presents 
a spectacle unequaled in its kind, perhaps, in the world. During the four 
years of the war, no meetings were held, so that during the sixteen years of 
its existence the Association has had twelve exhibitions, each succeeding one 
surpassing in interest and attraction its predecessor, in proportion to the agri- 
cultural and mechanical development of the vast territory dependent on the 
imperial city of the Valley of the Mississippi, until at the last Fair more than 
two hundred and fifty thousand persons visited it during the week, and one 
hundred thousand on a single day. The spacious machinery and mechanical 
halls, the cotton, mineral and geological departments, the gallinarium, the 
stables for horses and mules and houses for cattle, hogs and sheep, furnisli 
abundant accommodation, and are all upon a scale as liberal as the amphi- 
theater itself. 

A grand exhibition hall, circular in form, with an open area in the centre 
embellished with a fountain and myriads of flowers, aflbrds abundant space for 
the display of works of art, foreign and domestic, textile fabrics, pomological 
specimens, and the other rarer productions of the farmer and horticulturist. 

The buildings designed for the use of the officers of the Association, for 
the newspaper press, the cottage of the superintendent and other structures. 



ST. LOUIS AGRICUI/riRAI, AND MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION. LWII 

are all highly ornate and beautiful. When the building's are filled with their 
appropriate subjects for display and use, and the splendid grounds with the 
eager, restless and surging throng of exhibitors and visitors, a scene is pre- 
sented of life and enjoyment, and of marvelous attraction and beauty. 

If the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association has had greater 
growth and prosperity, greater numbers of exhibitors and greater multitudes 
of visitors, grander and more imposing features, more vast and varied agri- 
cultural and mechanical products on exhibition, than any other association of 
a kindred nature in the Union, and if its progress has been uniformly upward 
and onward, it is a fair and legitimate deduction that St. Louis is the focal 
point of the greatest agricultural and mechanical region of the United States. 

Apart from the natural beauty of the grounds ; the spacious, elegant and 
admirable arrangement of the bviildings, the attractive, nay, enchanting allure- 
ments of the exhibition, at which are seen works of art, natural or mechan- 
ical products, well-bred animals from every quarter of the globe ; apart from 
the joyous reunion of friends, or the opportunities to form new business or 
friendly associations, amid such rare scenes of beauty ; the St. Louis Fair 
affords higher and more important advantages to the city which gave it birth, 
and to the vast, growing and enormously-productive territory, which finds in 
St. Louis its true centre of trade, commerce and civilization. 

Each exhibitor unconsciously teaches the multitudes the design, use and 
application of each new invention, and although the lessons inculcated may 
not be complete, they carrv to their homes some ideas of the vast field of pro- 
duction and invention, and are elevated and enlightened in proportion to their 
acquirements and capacity. 

Besides the vast sums of money which are collected and distributed at every 
fair in St. Louis, "the influence of the Fair in the introduction of better stock, 
in bringing to the knowledge of the public, better farm implements, better 
seeds, and better modes of cultivation, in making one man's labor equal to 
that of half a dozen under the old regime, greatly increases the quantity 
and quality of farm products, and adds to the value of real estate. In these 
various ways the St. Louis Fair adds every year millions to the actual wealth 
of the Western country, and its power of thus creating wealth w^ill continue 
to increase from year to year, as its influence extends to new communities and 
new neighborhoods." 

Twenty miles below the confluence of two of the largest and most majestic 
rivers of the continent, affording with their tributaries more than 18,000 miles 
of steam navigation ; at the central and natural point of exchange for the 
productions of the North and South ; connected by railroad with a region 
embracing 2,£joo,ooo square miles and rich beyond example in mineral, 
mechanical and agricultural resources ; wuthin the corporate limits of a great 
city ; is located the home of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Asso- 
ciation, the most cherished institution of the people of St. Louis, and con- 
tributing more than any other single enterprise, to the development of her 
commerce, manufactures and civilization. 



LXX'III LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

Its popular mime, the "'St. Louis Fair," has become a household word, and 
being held at that auspicious season, when nature has assumed her bravest 
livery ; after the bounteous earth has yielded up her richest harvests ; visitors 
flock in great multitudes in pursuit of pleasure, business or recreation to its 
extensive and well-appointed grounds, to indulge in the charms of social 
enjoyment, to examine the works of the marvelous industries of the age, or 
by comparison of the specimens of human labor and skill, to inform them of 
the best means to supply their wants. 



THE WESTERN ENGRAVING COMPANY 



The Western Engraving Company is a new and important branch of 
mechanical industry added to the metropolitan character of St. Louis, and it 
is to them that we are indebted for the beautiful and artistic steel-plate 
portraits that embellish this work. This Company was organized under the 
laws of the State of Missouri, with ample capital, and has within the past 
year greatly increased its facilities by the purchase of the lithographic depart- 
ment of the "Democrat Company." Through this purchase and increase 
of facilities, the combination secured the utmost completeness in every 
department of the engraving art, and continues to occupy the old quarters 
on Pine street, nearly opposite the new Chamber of Commerce. From the 
combination of enterprise, capital and talent represented, it is safe to predict 
for the Company a success worthy of our section and of its growing needs. 
The superintendents and the artists in the various branches are all gentlemen 
of long experience in their separate specialties, and the standard adopted by 
them is fully up to that established in the most exacting centres of taste and 
art. The steel-plate branch of the business is one that especially commands 
attention, from its being the first attempt to fix it in our city, and also from 
the high order of excellence that characterizes the work. It is only in wealthy 
and tasteful communities that such enterprises can find a congenial home, and 
the' success of the present attempt is indicative of substantial progress in 
many of the best elements of civic growth. 

Fine steel portraits, bankers' drafts, bonds, certificates, and those evidences 
of values in which fine engraving is a safeguard, can now be produced here 
with less delay and uncertainty than formerly, w^hen such work was only done 
in the East. It is also far easier for our people to elaborate their instructions, 
or to modify their own opinions as to what they require, than if they were 
dealing with distant artists. The successful planting of the art of steel 
engraving in St. Louis is important in many respects, and casts oft' another of 
those restraints that have heretofore bound us to older centres of trade, and 
that have influenced too far the expression of our thought and of our taste. 



INDEX. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE. 

Prophetic Voices About St. Louis viii. 

Horace Greeley's Letter ix. 

General Sherman' s Letter xi. 

Letter of Judge Holmes xiii. 

Daniel R. Garrison xxiii. 

Historical Review of St. Louis 6 

The Argument 79 

Biographical 131 

Local and Commercial 835 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



General W. T. Sherman. ••• 133 

B. Gratz Brown 143 

Carl Shurz 149 

Geo. P. Plant. T..... ...... \. 155 

Robert E. Carr 159 

John. J. Roe 161 

F. P. Blah- 167 

Mrs. Elizabeth Crittenden. . . . 181 

Jas. H. Lucas 189 

Jas. Harrison . 195 

Joseph Charless 199 



Jas. L. D. Morrison 203 

Mrs. Anne L. Hunt 207 

Erastus Wells 211 

Geo. H. Rea 219 

Louis V. Bogy- • • • • 223 

E. O. Stanard 239 

Abram Nave 243 

Daniel Read 247 

Chas. P. Johnson 253 

John Sidney Moore 259 

Thos. Allen 261 



I N D K X 



General W. S. Harney 271 

Chas. Gibson 303 

Henry S . Gey er 311 

Jas. B. Eads 321 

Trusten Polk 331 

Jas. H. Britton 335 

Henry C. Brockmeyer. 337 

Britton A. Hill 343 

Henry T. Blow 351 

Rev. P.J. Ryan 357 

Elihu H. Shepard 361 

Joseph L. Stephens 365 

John K. Cummings 369 

Isaac Cook 373 

T. B. Edgar 377 

Elisha Hall Gregory 381 

Thos. H.Benton 385 

Albert Todd 393 

General Nathaniel Lyon 397 

Levi L. Ashbrook 401 

W. D. Grisvvold 403 

Hudson E. Bridge 405 

Captain Barton Able 411 

Edward Bates 415 

John F. Darby 423 

Adolphus Meier 431 

Johannes Ludewig 433 

Geo. R. Taylor 435 

Henry J. Spaunhorst 441 

John Hogan 447 

OHver Hart 453 

General John McNeil 457 

Col. Wm. S. Pope 463 

Arthur B. Barret 467 

Rev. T. M. Post 471 

Samuel Gaty 475 

General T.J. Bartholow 481 

Jos. P. Beck 485 



Col. A. W. Slayback 489 

Garland Carr Broadhead 493 

Lee R. Shryock 497 

Adam Hammer 503 

D. W. Marmaduke 509 

Henry S.Turner 513 

D. P.Rowland 517 

Edward Montgomery 523 

J. F, Alexander 527 

NathanielHolmes 531 

Thos. Carney 535 

W. G. Bartle 541 

Matthew Moody 545 

Theo. Laveille .......".. 547 

Stilson Hutchins 549 

Nicholas Schaeffer. 565 

R. M. Funkhouser 569 

John Jackson 573 

A. A. MelHer, 575 

Daniel D. Page 579 

John H. Terry 583 

James Andrews 587 

A. J. Conant 591 

Joseph Pulitzer 597 

Joseph R.Meeker 603 # 

M. M. Fallen 609 

Capt. Henry J. Moore....... 613 

D. A. January 617 

Alber Van Syckle .\ 619 

Emil Pretorius 623 

Alexander J. P. Garesche.... 627 

Emile Thomas 631 

Sunderland G. Sears 635 

George Bain 637 

Sullivan Blood 641 

John C. Swan 645 

Joseph Brown 649 

Josiah G. McClellan . 653 



1 N D E \ 



John Finn 659 

Thos. R. Allen 662 

Wm. M. McPheeters, M.D.. 665 

Sylester H. Laflin 667 

Rev. A. H. Burlingham 671 

Thos. Kennard, M.D 675 

Stephen M. Edgell 679 

Charles Henry Peck 681 

Isaiah Forbes, M.D 685 

Frank G. Porter, M.D 689 

Firman A. Rozier 695 

B. F. Edwards, M.D 699 

Webster M. Samuel 703 

George Knapp 705 

William T. Harris 707 

Andrew Maxwell 711 

Edward C. Franklin, M.D.. 713 

Frederick Hill, M.D 717 

James O. Broadhead 721 

William J. Lemp 727 

Henry Clay Sexton 729 

James A. Monks 733 

Joseph Crawshaw 735 



Roger E. Harding 737 

Isaac Hardin Jones 739 

James H. Brookmire 7^1.3 

H. W. Leffingwell 745 

Charles W. Stevens, M.D 753 

L. C. Boisliniere, M.D 757 

William Hamilton 761 

James Collins 763 

James W. Paramore 767 

James E. Yeatman 773 

William Dean 777 

Morris J. Lippman 779 

Garland Hm-t, M.D 783 

Meredith Martin, M.D 791 

John R. Lionberger 795 

Henry B. Belt 797 

William F. Switzler 799 

John Magwire 803 

John W. Noble 815 

Hon. Enos Clarke 821 

Charles H. Hughes, M.D... 827 
Augustus Krieckhaus 831 



LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



The Press of St. Louis in. 

Public Parks of St. Louis viii. 

Cotton Trade of St. Louis?. xiv. 

Washington University xviii. 

St. Louis University xxv. 

Charles E. Ware & Co., Publishers xxvii. 

DoDD, Brown & Co xxxi. 

R. Seij ;:w oi: Co xxxv. 

i'K'i"' ^^ '^' '.fvATHE > XXWni. 



INDEX 



Excelsior Manufacturing Co xl. 

Collier White Lead Works xlii. 

Eugene Jaccard & Co xlvi. 

BrOOKMIRE & RaNKEN XLVHI. 

Shryock & Rowland l . 

A. F. Shapleigh & Co lii. 

St. Louis Type Foundry liv. 

The Harrison Wire Co lvii . 

Western Brewery lix. 

Gray, Baker & Co lx. 

Newcomb Brothers lxii. 

St. Louis Life Insurance Co lxiv. 

St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association lxvi. 

Western Engraving Co lxvui. 

Cole Brothers lxix. 

Becktold & Co. lxxii. 




NKWCONrr. IIKO'I'IIEUS. I.XIII 

many articles that are a necessity to the trade, in which they are ever strivingr 
to present something still more desirable. The years of experience and 
careful attention which these gentlemen have given to the specialty in which 
they are engaged, produce their legitimate fruit in giving them a prominence 
as careful and tasteful caterers in one of the most exacting branches of trade, 
as well as one in which fashion is constantly asserting itself. 

The house is situated at 217 North Fifth street, and three of the spacious 
floors are devoted to the business, which in its yearly aggregate reaches to 
nearly half a million dollars. Though the business includes both a large 
jobbing trade and an extensive city trade, the latter is the subject of more 
solicitude and care than the other, partly because that trade is more exacting 
as well as more appreciative of fine goods and of novelties, and because it is 
in other respects more satisfactory. Some of the finest residences of which 
our city can boast owe the grace and finish of their interiors to the commer- 
cial and artistic spirit of the Newcomb Brothers. In this line they compete 
boldly with the fresco painter, and produce effects with paper that frequently 
surpass the expectations of their patrons. 

The manufacturing department, which is a part of this establishment, is 
very important in its bearing upon the business, as it enables them to meet 
the wants of their patrons with a precision and economy not otherwise attain- 
able. It has also led to the introduction of several new and desirable articles 
specially adapted to this section. In the article of wire screens, now coming 
into such general use for keeping out flies and insects while securing ventila- 
tion, they have introduced improvements that have placed their own manu- 
factures far in advance of the patented devices of the East, which they also 
sell. In curtain and upholstery goods, the efl'ect of their manufacturing is 
shown in the elegance imparted to the work, and the readiness with which 
they meet the varying taste of discriminating patrons. 

The basement, which is used for a storeroom for heavy stock, is a wilder- 
ness of rolls of paper, of all qualities and styles, piled in every direction. The 
main floor, or salesroom, is most conveniently arranged for showing goods 
precisely as they will appear when put in the places they are to occupy. 
Panels swung on hinges like doors, show the effects of the various papers. 
There are to be seen various imitations of native and foreign woods, and the 
countless figures which are produced to gratifiy the taste of the people in 
the decoration of their homes. Curtains, mouldings, mosquito bars, wire 
screens and weather strips are a few of the leading articles that in their 
appropriate seasons are exhibited in profusion, and that are shown in all the 
variety that home and foreign art produce. 

St. Louis is fortunate in being so ably represented in a trade having such 
an important bearing upon her social and commercial life, a trade that is 
rapidly extending, yet is being followed in all its ramifications with a vigor 
and judgment worthy of itself and of our citv. 



LXIV LOCAL AND COMMKRCIAT,. 

Norton Newcomb, who may be looked upon as the senior member of the 
firm, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November 29, 1825, where he 
received a sound public school education, eminently calculated to fit him for 
the business which claimed his attention in after-life. When he grew up to 
manhood, he entered upon the manufacture and sale of paper-hangings, a 
business which he has made a great success ever since.. In 1864 he came to 
St. Louis, and by strict attention to a business of which he is complete master, 
has succeeded in making it one of the recognized branches of industry of the 
city. 

George Amos Newcomb, the younger member of the firm, and brother of 
Norton, was born February 14, 1841. His early education was received at the 
Boston public schools, and in 1863 he graduated at the Wesleyan University, 
at Middletown, Connecticut, where he received a regular university education. 
In 1864 he entered the navy, and was appointed to a position upon the stafi' 
of Admiral Lee, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, For some 
years he was also engaged in teaching school, but was obliged to give up this 
pursuit on account of an affection of the lungs. 

The father of these enterprising gentlemen was a prominent citizen of 
Boston, having conducted the boot and shoe business for fifty years in one 
place, on Hanover street, in that city. He was a member of the city council 
for many years, and died in 1874, leaving a handsome fortune to his family. 



THE ST. LOUIS LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 



In the department of life insurance, St. Louis has one great representative 
worthy of herself bearing her own name. In the stability of its character 
and in the magnitude of its transactions, in the precision and simplicity with 
which its operations are conducted, and the lustre it adds to the business 
reputation of our city, the St. Louis Life Insurance Company enjoys a distinc- 
tion that has been earned by the exercise of unremitting care and sound 
business judgment through a series of years. The business of life insurance 
itself has grown to its prominence and its power during the last fourth of a 
century, and it is not strange that, with the almost unqualified success of its 
first years, errors should have crept in that were only eliminated by stunning 
reverses to those companies that forsook the path of safety and followed 
injurious theories. The trials of the last decade have weeded out most 
of the companies whose theories of business were not sound, and we have 
now, as a result of the sifting process, companies that are based .upon prin- 
ciples thoroughly tested. 



THE ST. LOinS LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. LXV 

The Mound City Life Insurance Company was organized May 14, 1868, 
and issued its first policy June 10, 1S68. Its offices were located at 318 
North Third street, between Olive and Locust streets, its president being 
Captain James B. Eads. From its organization, the Company received that 
vitality which has made it one of the largest institutions of the country, and 
its record from its inception is the chronicle of continuous success. That 
Western life insurance had many obstacles to surmount is absolutely evidenced 
by the number of companies that have been compelled to succumb by re-insur- 
ance. The attainment of solid and permanent success requires the labor of 
years, uniting industry and the best and most careful management. In 1872 
the growth of the Mound City, and the desire to extend its operations induced 
its stockholders to increase its capital from $150,000 to $500,000, and the 
wisdom of their action is shown in the large augmentation of business which 
followed the increase, and the growth of which it was the basis. In January 
1S74 the capital stock was still further increased to $1,000,000, and in the 
following month the name was changed from Mound City to St. Louis. 
"Mound City," as the old sobriquet of St. Louis, had lost its significance, 
and tended to a misplacement of the company's location, and the manage- 
mend deemed it better to place the name of the Company in direct identifi- 
cation with the name of the city. Recognizing cheapness and simplicity as 
desiderata for its success, the management of the Company adopted for its 
plan of business the low rate and plain contracts which are the distinguishing 
marks of stock life insurance companies, avoiding the numberless compli- 
cations of the dividend system by deducting the dividends in advance from 
the premiums. This is really the plan to which all others must in time give 
way. It fixes the value of the indemnity furnished, and throws aside the 
cumbersome system of dividends that are always uncertain, and that are 
attended with expense and delay in adjusting. The plan is to sell the 
insurance at its cash value, reducing the whole of the old complicated and 
abstruse calculations that the public never fully understood, to one simple 
and plain commercial transaction. 

The building of the Company, on the corner of Locust and Sixth streets, 
is one of the finest and best appointed in the city, and the offices are models 
of elegance and convenience. The structure is one of those which mark the 
taste and liberality of the new spirit that is showing itself in fine architec- 
tural display. Less ornate in its exterior than many cheaper edifices, it is 
probably, in material and construction, superior to anything which our city 
contains. 

The St. Louis Life Insurance Company has assets of over $7,000,000, and 
policies in force numbering over 18,000, covering thousands of lives in many 
States, and some in almost every State in the Union. In stability, character, 
and clear, energetic management, it is unsurpassed by any similar institution 
in America. 



I, XVI LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 



THE ST. LOUIS AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL 
ASSOCIATION. 



This Association, incorporated by special Act of the State of Missouri, held 
its first Annual Fair in October 1856. Fifty acres of land, lying on the west 
side of Grand avenue, northwestwardly from the centre of the city, a portion 
of the tract within, but the larger part without the then city limits, were 
deemed sufficient for the future wants of the Association. It has since been 
almost doubled in extent, and now barely accommodates its increased demands. 

These grounds were originally embellished with fine trees of natural growth, 
and now, handsomely inclosed and ornamented with shrubbery, flowers, capa- 
cious drives, gravelled walks and a tiny lake, are highly attractive and beau- 
tiful. Added to these are buildings, costing nearly a quarter of a million of 
dollars, and admirably adapted to the wants of a grand exhibition of the 
agricultural and mechanical products of the mountains, plains and valleys of 
the great and growing West. 

The new amphitheater is magnificent in its proportions, and pleasing and 
ornamental in its architectural design. It will seat twenty-five thousand per- 
sons, and its ample promenades will accommodate nearly, if not quite, as 
many more. The arena, for equine, bovine, ovine and porcine exhibitions, 
occupies a circle within the vast amphitheater, with a circuit of a quarter of a 
mile. Thursday is the great exhibition day of the "Fair week," when the 
schools are closed and business in the city of all kinds suspended, and on that 
day especially, the amphitheater is filled to its utmost capacity, and presents 
a spectacle unequaled in its kind, perhaps, in the world. During the four 
years of the war, no meetings were held, so that during the sixteen years of 
its existence the Association has had twelve exhibitions, each succeeding one 
surpassing in interest and attraction its predecessor, in proportion to the agri- 
cultural and mechanical development of the vast territory dependent on the 
imperial city of the Valley of the Mississippi, until at the last Fair more than 
two hundred and fifty thousand persons visited it during the week, and one 
hundred thousand on a single day. The spacious machinery and mechanical 
halls, the cotton, mineral and geological departments, the gallinarium, the 
stables for horses and mules and houses for cattle, hogs and sheep, furnish 
abundant accommodation, and are all upon a scale as liberal as the amphi- 
theater itself. 

A grand exhibition hall, circular in form, with an open area in the cerftre 
embellished with a fountain and myriads of flowers, afibrds abundant space for 
the display of works of art, foreign and domestic, textile fabrics, pomological 
specimens, and the other rarer productions of the farmer and horticulturist. 

The buildings designed .for the use of the officers of the Association, for 
the newspaper press, the cottage of the superintendent and other structures. 



ST. LOUIS A(JRICULTITRAL AND MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION. LX\I1 

are all highly ornate and beautiful. When the buildings are filled with their 
appropriate subjects for display and use, and the splendid grounds with the 
eager, restless and surging throng of exhibitors and visitors, a scene is pre- 
sented of life and enjoyment, and of marvelous attraction and beauty. 

If the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association has had greater 
growth and prosperity, greater numbers of exhibitors and greater multitudes 
of visitors, grander and more imposing features, more vast and varied agri- 
cultural and mechanical products on exhibition, tha'n any other association of 
a kindred nature in the Union, and if its progress has been uniformly upward 
and onward, it is a fair and legitimate deduction that St. Louis is the focal 
point of the greatest agricultural and mechanical region of the United States. 

Apart from the natural beauty of the grounds; the spacious, elegant and 
admirable arrangement of the buildings, the attractive, nay, enchanting allure- 
ments of the exhibition, at which are seen works of art, natural or mechan- 
ical products, well-bred animals from every quarter of the globe ; apart from 
the joyous reunion of friends, or the opportunities to form new business or 
friendly associations, amid such rare scenes of beauty ; the St. Louis Fair 
affords higher and more important advantages to the city which gave it birth, 
and to the vast, growing and enormously-productive territory, which finds in 
St. Louis its true centre of trade, commerce and civilization. 

Each exhibitor unconsciously teaches the multitudes the design, use and 
application of each new invention, and although the lessons inculcated may 
not be complete, they carry to their homes some ideas of the vast field of pro- 
duction and invention, and are elevated and enlightened in proportion to their 
acquirements and capacity. 

Besides the vast sums of money which are collected and distributed at every 
fair in St. Louis, "the influence of the Fair in the introduction of better stock, 
in bringing to the knowledge of the public, better farm implements, better 
seeds, and better modes of cultivation, in making one man's labor equal to 
that of half a dozen under the old regime, greatly increases the quantity 
and quality of farm products, and adds to the value of real estate. In these 
various ways the St. Louis Fair adds every year millions to the actual wealth 
of the Western country, and its power of thus creating wealth will continue 
to increase from year to year, as its influence extends to new communities and 
new neighborhoods." 

Twenty miles below the confluence of two of the largest and most majestic 
rivers of the continent, aflbrding with their tributaries more than 18,000 miles 
of steam navigation ; at the central and natural point of exchange for the 
productions of the North and South ; connected by railroad with a region 
embracing 3,500,000 square miles and rich beyond example in mineral, 
mechanical and agricultural resources ; within the corporate limits of a great 
city ; is located the home of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Asso- 
ciation, the most cherished institution of the people of St. Louis, and con- 
tributing more than any other single enterprise, to the development of her 
commerce, manufactures and civilization. 



LXVIII I.OCAr. AND COMMEKCIAI.. 

Its popular name, the "St. Louis Fair," has become a household word, and 
being held at that auspicious season, when nature has assumed her bravest 
livery ; after the bounteous earth has yielded up her richest harvests ; visitors 
flock in great multitudes in pursuit of pleasure, business or recreation to its 
extensive and well-appointed grounds, to indulge in the charms of social 
enjoyment, to examine the works of the marvelous industries of the age, or 
by comparison of the specimens of human labor and skill, to inform them of 
the best means to supply their w^ants. 



THE WESTERN ENGRAVING COMPANY 



The Western Engraving Company is a new and important branch of 
mechanical industry added to the metropolitan character of St. Louis, and it 
is to them that we are indebted for the beautiful and artistic steel-plate 
portraits that embellish this work. This Company was organized under the 
laws of the State of Missouri, with ample capital, and has within the past 
year greatly increased its facilities by the purchase of the lithographic depart- 
ment of the "Democrat Company." Through this purchase and increase 
of facilities, the combination secured the utmost completeness in every 
department of the engraving art, and continues to occupy the old quarters 
on Pine street, nearly opposite the new Chamber of Commerce. From the 
combination of enterprise, capital and talent represented, it is safe to predict 
for the Company a success worthy of our section and of its growing needs. 
The superintendents and the artists in the various branches are all gentlemen 
of long experience in their separate specialties, and the standard adopted by 
them is fully up to that established in the most exacting centres of taste and 
art. The steel-plate branch of the business is one that especially commands 
attention, from its being the first attempt to fix it in our city, and also from 
the high order of excellence that characterizes the work. It is only in wealthy 
and tasteful communities that such enterprises can find a congenial home, and 
the success of the present attempt is indicative of substantial progress in 
many of the best elements of civic growth. 

Fine steel portraits, bankers' drafts, bonds, certificates, and those evidences 
of values in which fine engraving is a safeguard, can now be produced here 
with less delay and uncertainty than formerly, when such work was only done 
in the East. It is also far easier for our people to elaborate their instructions, 
or to modify their own opinions as to what they require, than if they were 
dealing with distant artists. The successful planting of the art of steel 
engraving in St. Louis is important in many respects, and casts oft' another of 
those restraints that have heretofore bound us to older centres of trade, and 
that have influenced too far the expression of oiu" thought and of our taste. 





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COLE BROTHERS. LXIX 



LIGHTNING RODS— COLE BROTHERS. 



It was many years after the discovery by Franklin of the conductibility of 
lightning, that the principle was utilized for the preservation of buildings 
among the people. The most enlightened governments of the world put 
lightning rods upon their public buildings, but the principle needed better 
means of application than any yet adopted, before lightning rods could 
come into general use. The application of the electric telegraph became so 
general during the decade extending from 1S40 to 1850, that the popular 
mind grew to be well-informed regarding the uses and dangers of that subtle 
force, and lightning rods came into general use. By the invention of James 
Spi'att, of Cincinnati, in 1848, a jointed continuous rod was achieved, and 
from "that time the trade in lightning rods became a distinct industry, in 
which a large amount of capital was invested and many men employed. An 
invention so important in the protection of life and property could not fail of 
almost immediate adoption by the people, and it is now estimated that there 
is in the United States many millions of dollars of capital employed in this 
single manufacture. 

In 1849, the discovery of the Philadelphia philosopher, as utilized by the 
Englishman Spratt, was introduced into Iowa by Messrs. J. W, and R. S. 
Cole, the senior members of the firm of Cole Brothers. W. R. Cole, the next 
younger brother, acted in the capacity of salesman at that time. The begin- 
ning was a moderate one, a single horse being employed in transporting the 
outfit, and the rods being put up by the single salesman. Iowa was then, as 
was the whole Northwest, a wild and sparsely settled country, but the 
sagacity of the brothers Cole led them to see that all that rich territory must 
soon be brought into cultivation, and that the fine houses and well filled barns 
would require lightning rods for their protection. For a number of years the 
lightning rod firm was known as J. W. & R. S. Cole, the younger members 
of the pi-esent firm sometimes doing business in connection with them and 
sometimes on separate account. As the years passed on, the business grew 
and prospered, and facilities for its transaction were added. 

In 1859 Messrs. J. W. and R. S. Cole admitted as partners in the business 
W. R. Cole and James A. Throop, and the firm name became Cole, 
Throop & Co. Four years later the house admitted A. Brockway as a 
partner, and established their pump manufactory at Greencastle, Indiana. 
In i860 Mr. John J. Cole established himself at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where, 
during the next four years, he built up a flourishing and lucrative business. 
February i, 1865, Mr. James A. Throop withdrew from the firm of Cole, 
Throop & Co. and Mr. John J. Cole was invited to take his place and unite 
his fortunes with his three older brothers, which he did, the firm name being 



LXX -I.OCAL AND COMMEriciAL. 

changed to Cole Brothers. The business of the firm was vet comparatively 
small, with a small lightning rod manufactory located at Mount Pleasant, 
Iowa, but with harmonious councils and united action the Company was just 
entering upon the period of its greatest prosperity. They soon discovered 
the disadvantage of manufacturing at a distance from a commercial centre, 
and determined to remove their lightning rod manufactory to Chicago or 
St. Louis for greater facilities. The advantages" and disadvantages of the 
two places were discussed, and St. Louis was decided upon as the rising 
central city of the continent, and offering greater inducements. Accordingly, 
in January iS66, the Franklin Lightning Rod Works were established in 
St. Louis, under the management of John J. Cole, the present superintendent 
of the St. Louis department. At that time the manufactory was a small 
affair, producing a few hundred thousand feet of rod each year to supply their 
own teams ; but since then the capacity of their manufactory has been many 
times doubled and quadrupled, until now they produce lightning rods by the 
millions of feet, and nearly every boat that ascends or descends the river, 
and nearly every railroad train that pushes into the interior, bears its burden 
of the products of this factory. Thus, from the small beginning here traced, 
we see arise the largest lightning rod and pump firm in the Mississippi 
Valley, and next to the largest in existence. The following are the prin- 
cipal and branch houses of the firm : 

Principal Houses. — Cole Brothers, Mount Pleasant, Iowa ; headquarters 
of the retail department. Cole Brothers, St. Louis, Missouri ; Lightning 
Rod Manufactory. Cole Brothers & Brockway. Greencastle, Indiana ; Pump 
Manufactory. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Sherman, Texas ; Branch Light- 
ning Rod Manufactory. 

Branch Houses, — Cole Brothers & Hart, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Cole 
Brothers & Adams, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Hutton, Atlantic, 
Iowa. Cole Brothers & Jennings, Osceola, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Harris, 
Fort Dodge, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Machos, Boonsboro, Iowa. Cole 
Brothers & Swan, Centerville, Iowa. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Kansas 
City, Missouri. Cole Brothers & Johnson, Sherman, Texas. Cole Brothers 
& Eaton, Springfield, Missouri. Cole Brothers & Eaton, Little Rock, 
Arkansas. Cole Brothers & Fagan, Pana, Illinois. Cole Brothers, success- 
ors to Cole Brothers & Ashers, Lawrence, Kansas. Samuel Hutton, with 
Cole Brothers, St. Joseph, Missouri. 

This description must derive its interest largely from the fact that this house 
is a representative one of St. Louis, and the largest west of the Alleghanies. 
The success that has followed the endeavors of its founders must be attributed 
to their energy, their business ability and the strict integrity that has marked 
all their transactions. From the outset they adopted the best lightning rod in 
the mai'ket, and started out on the principle of integrity and equal justice. 
They have always made it a point that their Franklin Lightning Rod should 
be the very best article of its kind in the market, and as a result they have 



C6I,E BlJOl'HERS. I.XXI 

always had the honorable reputation of manufacturing and selling the best 
lightning rods in the market. They have drawn liberally upon their long 
and extensive experience in the construction of their Franklin Lightning Rods, 
and have applied every rule and test that science could supply. As a result, 
their Franklin Lightning Rod stands to-day the leading rod, and the acknowl- 
edged superior over all competitors, sanctioned and recommended by leading 
scientists. Knowing the real merit of their productions, and appreciating the 
value of acquainting the general public with those merits, and with their 
superior advantages as manufacturers, in January iS6S Mr. John J. Cole 
conceived the idea of establishing a paper in the interest of his firm. 

The SL Louis Herald^ an octavo monthly paper, was thus established, and 
has been published by the company ever since. Under the management of 
Mr. John J. Cole, this paper rose far above the rank of a trade newspaper, 
and by the manner in which it handled many of the leading topics of the day, 
took a high standing in the ranks of the secular press. Through the instru- 
mentality of this paper, and the canvassing of their hundreds of agents in all 
directions. Cole Brothers have become probably better known than any other 
house in the Mississippi Valley, and " Cole Brothers" and "Franklin Light- 
ning Rod" are household words over more than a million square miles of 
territory. A noticeable feature in the management of the Franklin Lightning 
Rod works is their fine displays at the fairs. In this respect, they have exhib- 
ited an ingenuity and a liberality which are highly commendable. 

The largest and most noticeable of these displays was their " Lightning 
Rod Capitol," erected upon the St. Louis Fair Grounds, for the Fair of 
October 1871. This was a correct representation, upon a large scale, (being 
over forty feet long and forty-five feet high,) of the Capitol Building at Wash- 
ington, and composed wholly of lightning rods. This was considered the 
largest and finest display of lightning rods ever made, and attracted universal 
attention. These displays were made more for the purpose of showing and 
advertising their manufactures than to compete for premiums, yet, with one 
or two exceptions, they have taken every premium offered on lightning 
rods wherever they have exhibited. 

Owing to the facilities for the transportation of freight to and from all 
points, and the great advantages of St. Louis as a manufacturing city, Cole 
Brothers are enabled to manufacture their Franklin Lightning Rods, and lay 
them down at any point, cheaper than the same quality of rod can be pro- 
duced elsewhere and laid down at that place, and as representative St. 
Louisians, no firm stands higher in honor and business integrity. These 
advantages give to them almost exclusively the immense trade of eight or ten 
of the surrounding- States. 



In connection with this house, we would speak here of Mr. John J. Cole, not that he is 
a representative St. Louisian in having been long identified with her interests, but because 
he is a rising young man of great abilit}' and promise for the future; and one who is 
destined to take the place of some of our most honored citizens now passing away. 



LXXII LOCAL AND COMMERCIAL. 

John Jefferson Cole was born February 14th, 1S36, and is now in his fortieth year. 
In the fullest sense of the expression, Mr. Cole may be looked upon as a self-made man, 
and consequently one to whom much honor is due. From his fourteenth year he not only 
maintained himself, but in a great measure assisted and maintained others who were 
dependent upon his exertions. By his individual eftorts he obtained a liberal education, 
and in spite of the most discouraging surroundings, succeeded in attending college, 
making the usual graduating course with the exception of one year. The same self-reli- 
ance and indomitable will to overcome obstacles in the path to success, which marked his 
early career in the pursuit of knowledge, have characterized his after-endeavors ; have 
placed him where he stands to-day, the head of the most extensive Lightning Rod Manu- 
factory in the Valley of the Mississippi. In his connection with this business, he began at 
the bottom, on fifteen dollars per month, and is to-day, through his own individual exer- 
tions, Superintendent and Manager of a branch of industry which owes, not only its suc- 
cess, but its very existence, to his well directed efforts. 

In 1867, he led the opposition to the street railways, and refused to pay the extra fare 
which the different companies wished to force from our citizens ; and by his persistent 
efforts in that direction, secured the abolition of this attempted extortion, thereby saving 
thousands of dollars to our citizens of all classes. Other circumstances, demonstrating 
his reliance and force of character might be mentioned, but the above is sufficient to illus- 
trate this point in his character. 

Mr. Cole is still a young man, full of energy and business tact. His strong individual- 
ity has impressed itself upon the business which he has managed so successfully, as it does 
upon everything he touches. In all his business relations he is honorable and upright, 
believing that his word once given, should partake of the same sacred character as his 
bond. What the future may unfold, it were hard to tell, but from the past of John Jeffer- 
son Cole, if he fills the allotted time of man on earth, we may naturally look for still 
greater achievements. 



BECKTOLD & CO., BOOK BINDERS. 



This firm is one of the most reliable and capable in th'e city, the senior 
partner (and founder of the establishment,) Mr. William B. Becktold, being 
undoubtedly the best practical binder in the West. Its outfit is complete in 
every particular, consisting of all the improved machinery for doing edition 
work in cloth and leather, as well as the ordinary machinery for carrying on a 
first-class blank book manufactory. Their bid for binding this work was 
accepted without reference to other establishments in the city, because the 
publishers recognized the fact that they alone could issue the work bound in 
a creditable manner, and it afibrds us pleasure to refer to this volume as a 
sample of their work. 



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